Tailored lung cancer screening model helps determine nodule follow-up

A personalized lung cancer screening model used with patients with pulmonary nodules identified on low-dose CT (LDCT) helps clinicians determine how to follow up better than rule-based protocols, researchers have found. A group led by Zixing Wang, MD, of Peking Union Medical College in Beijing, China, found that a tailored model had a 0% rate of delayed diagnosis of lung cancer at 12-month follow-up. The results were published April 15 in Pulmonology. Up to half of screened individuals have at least one pulmonary nodule on lung cancer screening, and determining the optimal time for follow-up testing of these nodules can be a challenge, the authors explained. "[Finding pulmonary nodules on LDCT can be] a gateway to repeated imaging, diagnostic workup, and treatment -- including surgical resection," they noted. "Benefits of early diagnosis and treatment of cancer largely depend on criteria and frequency of follow-up examinations. However, these benefits are often offset by high overtesting rates, resource waste, complications, and mental stress. Precisely planning follow-up testing is therefore critical to improving the effectiveness of screening programs." To address the problem, the group developed and validated a modeling schema for predicting lung cancer using data from 1,809 patients in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) between the ages of 55 and 74 with pulmonary nodules. Of these cases, 1,206 were used for the development of the schema and 603 for its validati...
Source: AuntMinnie.com Headlines - Category: Radiology Authors: Tags: CT Source Type: news