Screening for lung cancer with low-dose computed tomography

Abstract

Lung cancer is a highly malignant disease and the overall mortality is high because most of patients present with advanced disease. Previous lung cancer screening studies, including chest X-ray and sputum cytology, showed insignificant difference in mortality between study and control groups. Low dose computed tomography(LDCT) is a new developed lung cancer screening tool. It demonstrated a 20% reduction in lung cancer-related mortality and 7% reduction in all-cause mortality among selected high risk smoking screenees. However, negative effects, such as false positive findings of pulmonary nodules, radiation exposure, and overdiagnosis may result from LDCT screening. We need to investigate a more cost-effective lung cancer screening protocol in the near future.