Using CT scan to screen for lung cancer provides no benefit to smokers:

The use of computed tomography (CT) scans to screen current or former smokers for lung cancer is still too experimental to recommend for widespread medical use, as per results from a new study.

The potential use of imaging tests like CT to screen for lung cancer has been the subject of lively debate in recent years. Some prior studies have suggested that such tests can find lung cancer earlier, when tumors are smaller and more likely operable. The question is whether this translates into helping people live longer and whether it has an adverse affect on their quality of life.

In the latest study, scientists looked at the Computerized axial tomography scans of more than 3,200 adults with a history of smoking but no symptoms of lung cancer. As before, the imaging procedure was shown to find smaller tumors earlier, but the scientists saw no corresponding evidence that patients lived longer as a result of early detection and therapy.

Without such a benefit to justify the approach, the scientists warn, we are left with the prospect of taking people who have no symptoms of disease and subjecting them unnecessarily to the costs, pain, inconvenience, and health risks linked to additional scans, surgeries, recuperation, etc.

More studies are needed to determine if people who show no symptoms of lung cancer should get the screens, the study concludes. "These findings. raise doubts about the premise underpinning CT screening for lung cancer, and also raise concerns about its potential harms if pursued on a wide scale," write the study authors.


Posted by: Justin234    Source

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