A recent study has confirmed that the adoption of a new lung cancer screening program did not lead to increased rates of surgical intervention for benign or noncancerous tumors.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently approved coverage for screening with low-dose computerized tomography (CT) for Medicare beneficiaries between the ages of 55 years and 77 years who have a history of smoking at least one pack of cigarettes per day for 30 years and who either currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years.
Past studies have indicated that screening can greatly reduce mortality in this population. However, there are concerns that such screening could lead to increased incidence of surgical procedures for benign disease.
Led by Christina Williamson, MD (Lahey Hospital and Medical Center, Burlington, MA), researchers analyzed data from a database of 1654 patients who underwent low-dose CT to screen for lung cancer between January 2012 and June 2014. All patients were considered high risk according to the National Comprehensive Cancer Network lung cancer screening guidelines.
A total of 20 patients who were screened had lung cancer and underwent surgery. The majority (18 patients) were diagnosed with an early stage of the disease. An additional five patients with non-lung cancer diagnoses also underwent surgery, for an overall incidence of 0.3%, and only four of these patients (0.24%) had benign disease.
The findings were comparable to those of the National Lung Screening Trial—a study that largely informed CMS’s decision to cover low-dose CT lung cancer screening—in which the incidence of surgery for non-lung cancer diagnoses was 0.62%.
