How important is lung cancer screening?
In 2020, lung cancer was of cancer death worldwide, causing an estimated 1.8 million deaths¹. Studies have shown that screening with low dose CT for high-risk individuals can help diagnose cancer early when successful treatment is more likely.

A short history of lung cancer screening
Screening people without symptoms for early signs of lung cancer began in the 1950s with chest X-rays to find early lung tumors in groups of men in the 1950s, but due to disappointing results lung cancer screening was put on the backburner.

In 1977, the first CT study scans to look for lung cancer was published². Computing power combined with x-rays meant the lungs could be seen in more detail than before, but the amount of radiation that patients were exposed to in a CT scan was much higher than traditional chest X-rays.

In 1996, researchers showed that newer CT scanners using a lower radiation dose, were better at detecting abnormalities.³

In 2002, a large-scale trial - the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) - was started in the US. It involved more than 50,000 people at high risk for lung cancer, who were screened annually for three years, using either a chest X-ray or the low radiation dose CT scan. The results showed around a 20% reduction in the number of lung cancer deaths in the group monitored with the low dose CT scans compared to X-rays. The results were published in 2011⁴ and one death from lung cancer was avoided for every 330 people screened with low-dose CT compared to an X-ray.

Now, various countries are looking into introducing some form of national screening for lung cancer in high-risk patients.