CT Scans Might Radically Improve Lung Cancer Survival
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Contributed by William Angelos| 26 October, 2006 04:16 GMT
New research offers hope that spiral CT scans might detect lung cancer in the very early stages of the disease, dramatically improving the long-term chance of survival.
Spiral CT scans of people who are at risk of lung cancer -- including smokers and former smokers -- could reveal very small and early stage signs of the disease and result in far better cure rates, suggests a new study published in the
New England Journal of Medicine.
CT scans, which cost between $200 and $300, can detect tumors as small as a pea. At that stage, even an invasive type of lung cancer is still treatable.
Currently, lung cancer claims more lives each year than breast, prostate, cervical and colon cancers combined. Approximately 95 percent of the 173,000 people who receive the diagnosis annually in the U.S. eventually die from this devastating disease.
Researchers believe that if spiral CT scans were performed as routinely as mammography and colonoscopy, they could radically alter the outcomes for many lung cancer victims. |
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