When it comes to your health you can never be too cautious. Finding lung cancer early, when it is easiest to treat, can save your life.
Early detection of lung cancer is defined as strategies that can detect lung cancer at a stage where surgery or stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) can be offered with the goal of a cure.
There are a number of factors that determine the outlook for any lung cancer patient in addition to when the lung cancer is detected, including the type of lung cancer, the patient’s health in general, and the responsiveness of the patient’s lung cancer to treatment.
However, lung cancer is most easily and effectively treated when it is found at an early stage. Statistically, those with lung cancer caught early on have a much higher likelihood of surviving at least five years after diagnosis than those diagnosed when the lung cancer is more advanced.
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Currently, only 17% of lung cancers are diagnosed while the tumor is still localized—that is, only found at the site where it started. This is commonly referred to as stage I. The major challenge is that most people with lung cancer only have symptoms when they are in the later stages of the disease, so lung cancer is not usually suspected and discovered until it has had the chance to grow and spread.
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How can lung cancer be detected early?
Lung cancer can be detected early via screening. Screening for lung cancer means checking for cancer before there are any symptoms.
For lung cancer, early-detection screening by a low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) scan (also called low-dose spiral CT scan or helical CT scan) has proven to be effective among individuals considered to be at high risk. It is also only recommended for these individuals.
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LDCT is much more sensitive than chest X-rays and can detect smaller abnormalities that may be lung cancer. Chest X-rays are not recommended for lung cancer screening because they often miss early-stage lung cancers and have not resulted in decreased mortality. This is also the case for sputum cytology, a test that checks for abnormal cells in the sputum.
