More Americans die from cancer of the lung than any other form of the disease. Medical experts say the best way to avoid cancer of the lung is to either never smoke cigarettes or stop smoking them. However, for individuals at risk for cancer of the lung, getting an expensive CT scan rather than a cheap chest x-ray has been found to significantly boost the survival pace.
Lung cancer deaths lowered 20 percent with CT scans
Lung cancer deaths will go down in smokers and former smokers who get a CT scan once a year 20 percent, reports the National Cancer Institute. Middle aged or older smokers or ex-smokers who had smoked a pack a day for at least 30 years were tracked. 53,000 people were watched. Those with a regular chest x-ray were compared to those who had annual low-dose helical computed tomography or CTs. The NCI had to stop the study early though. The results were so strong that letting the people in the study know was important.
Obstacles to CT scans for lung cancer screening
There are some obstacles CT scans for lung cancer have to overcome. The study failed to mention these. Most health insurance companies including Medicare don't cover the costs of a CT scan for lung cancer. A chest CT scan costs $1,800 as an average as outlined by newchoicehealth.com. $370 is the average for what you'd pay for a standard chest x-ray for lung cancer screening. Most health care plans cover it anyway. There is also radiation. About 15 times more radiation is put into a patient with a low-dose CT scan than with a chest x-ray. Plus, the high detail of a CT scan picks up suspicious anomalies that turn out not to be tumors.
CT scan screening can help stop death by lung cancer
You will find a lot of smokers within the U.S. 80 million people get this title. Because lung cancer is diagnosed too late, about 85 percent of patients with it die. After 50 years of smoking, 67-year-old Steffani Torrighelli knew that lung cancer was a risk, CBS News reports. She enrolled within the study just two years ago. There weren't any lung cancer symptoms shown in her first annual CT scan for lung cancer screening although an early stage tumor had been found. The tumor had been surgically removed and two years later Torrighelli is cancer free and committed to an annual CT scan for lung cancer screening.
Details from
Washington Post
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/04/AR2010110407687_2.html
CBS News
cbsnews.com/stories/2010/11/04/eveningnews/main7023357.shtml
New Choice Health
newchoicehealth.com/Directory/Procedure/8/Chest%20CT%20Scan
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