More people with a long history of smoking should be tested for lung cancer annually, even if they have stopped in recent years, according to the new guidance released on Tuesday by a government-backed panel of health experts.
The US Preventive Services Task Force routinely reviews and guides preventive health services in the country. Although officially a government agency, its guidelines are developed by relevant external experts brought in as volunteers. On Tuesday, agency experts issued new guidelines for screening for lung cancer, which were also Published in the medical journal JAMA.
The recommendations require that people between 50 and 80 years old with at least 20 pack-years of smokers be tested annually for lung cancer. A pack of a year is defined as smoking the equivalent of a pack – which has 20 cigarettes – per day for a year. People who have smoked so much, but have since quit, are still advised to do the screening, as long as they have stopped in the past 15 years. Those who quit smoking more than 15 years ago or who have conditions that would affect their life expectancy or the desire to undergo lung surgery are not recommended for screening.
The USPTF recommendations are not just polite advice; they greatly influence insurance coverage, which means that more Americans should now be eligible for lung cancer screening through their current health plans.
The new guidelines are more extensive than the most recent set, launched in 2013. The previous version provided for the screening of people between 55 and 80 years old with 30 pack years of smokers. According to the USPTF authors, new evidence has since shown the likely benefits of early screening for people with a milder smoking history. A modeling study also published in JAMA on Tuesday, for example, found that this new criterion would prevent more lung cancer deaths in the long run compared to the previous guideline, with little additional damage.
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The study modeled what would happen if everyone who was eligible and born in 1960 was screened for lung cancer using a low-dose CT scan, the standard screening test. The new guidelines are expected to prevent 503 deaths per 100,000 people examined, compared with 381 preventable deaths per 100,000 under the old criteria.
It is important to note that the new guidelines can also help to reduce certain gaps in the treatment of cancer. Although smoking remains the main risk factor for lung cancer, the incidence of lung cancer is higher among black Americans than in other racial groups, and it is thought that blacks and Native Americans are more at risk of lung cancer with lower levels of smoking. Women can also be screened more now, as they generally smoke less, on average, than men.
“According to our analysis, the new recommendations will reduce the disparities in lung cancer eligibility by gender and race, which, hopefully, will result in reductions in lung cancer disparities in the United States,” Rafael Meza, associate professor of epidemiology at University of Michigan School of Public Health that led the new modeling research published in JAMA, said in a demonstration launched by the university.
Currently, lung cancer is the second most importantmmon cancer in the United States, responsible for more than 200,000 confirmed cases per year. And although the number of lung cancer deaths has steadily declined over the decades, it is still the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. This year, approximately 131,880 Americans are expected die because of it.