Findings Suggest That Age-Based Screening Could Improve Lung Cancer Detection: Study

In a recent study, researchers show that age-based screening for lung cancer could improve detection and cost-effectiveness while reducing disparities in screening participation and outcomes.

Their findings suggest that current screening guidelines miss most patients with lung cancer, with only 35.1% of cohort patients with lung cancer meeting current US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) criteria. When researchers expanded age criteria to 40-85 paired with a history of 10 or pack-years smoking cigarettes, the detection rate increased to only 62.1%; however, when researchers conducted universal age-based screening (40-85 years), they detected 93.9% of cancers.

While current screening guidelines were designed to balance common risk factors with prevention of exposure to unnecessary radiation through CT scan screening, the authors note that lung cancer is increasingly diagnosed in never-smokers, suggesting that the current USPSTF screening criteria exclude many at-risk individuals, thus raising concerns about their effectiveness and equity.

They estimate that implementing universal age-based screening for people aged 40-85 years would prevent at least 26,124 deaths annually.

The Susan Wojcicki Foundation is dedicated to expanding screening guidelines in order to catch lung cancer earlier for more people.

Read the full study, and learn more about our work here.