[ad_1]
Thousands of lives could be saved if people at risk of developing Britain’s deadliest cancer were screened for diagnosis before it becomes incurable, a major NHS study found.
Giving smokers and ex-smokers a CT scan uncovers cancerous lung tumors when they are at an early enough stage that they can still be removed, rather than continuing to grow unnoticed, it shows.
Experts are demanding that the government take steps to incorporate a routine CT scan of smokers and ex-smokers to reduce the huge number of deaths from lung cancer. Approximately 48,000 people a year are diagnosed with the disease in the UK and 35,100 die from it, 96 a day.
Lung cancer is a particularly brutal form of cancer because it is difficult to detect, and three out of four cases are diagnosed in stage three or four, when it is too late to give a person life-saving treatment.
However, the Summit study, led by NHS trusted disease specialists at University College London Hospital, offers real hope that lung cancer may become an early-caught condition.
The CT scan meant that 70% of the growths detected in people’s lungs were identified when the disease was at stage one or two, a large increase from the usual rate of early diagnosis.
“It’s really a breakthrough for lung cancer,” Dr. Sam Janes of UCLH, the trial’s principal investigator, told The Guardian. Lung cancer has never had anything that allowed us to detect this devastating cancer earlier and offer curative treatment to this number of lung cancer patients. “
“It is important to highlight the effectiveness of CT scanning. At my lung cancer clinic at UCLH, seven out of 10 people have cancer that has been inoperable, incurable, since the first time they saw a doctor. Whereas with the cancers we see with Summit, seven out of 10 are potentially curable, because they were detected earlier.
“We have many, many patients who cannot believe how lucky they have been because they participated because they had a scan, they found a nodule, they had early cancer, and then they had surgery. People leave the hospital within three to five days and can return to work or their usual routine in six weeks. That prevented them from presenting to a doctor, perhaps 18 months later, with cancer that has spread and is often incurable. “
Janes and her team found 180 cases of lung cancer among 12,100 smokers and ex-smokers aged 55 to 78 in north-central and north-east London, many of whom came from poorer backgrounds. They volunteered to undergo what he called a “lung health technical inspection” when they received an invitation letter from their GP. Of these, 70% were discovered while they were still in stage one or two.
Experts say the findings show that the government should take steps to carry out routine screenings of smokers and former smokers to reduce the horrendous death toll from the disease.
“Now that CT screening for lung cancer has been shown to work, we are very hopeful that a lung cancer screening program will be introduced in England,” said Dr. Robert Rintoul, chair of the clinical advisory group for the UK Lung Cancer Coalition. a group of leading disease experts and patient charities.
“Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the UK and early detection offers the best chance for curative treatment and saving more lives.” Screening tests could lead to a 25% drop in the number of men dying from lung cancer and 30-40% fewer deaths among women, he added.
“The Summit study will teach us more about how to successfully implement CT screening in a high-risk population,” said Rintoul.
Summit’s findings will be published in a medical journal later this year. They will add to the mounting pressure on the UK’s National Screening Committee to screen for lung cancer, at least among those who smoke or used to, in the same way that people of certain age groups already are. invited to breast, bowel and cervix examinations. Cancer. Previous studies in the US and Europe have also shown that CT scan can find lung cancers that would have otherwise remained hidden.
The grim scenario that lung cancer often involves is underscored by Cancer Research UK’s finding that “survival from lung cancer has not improved much in the last 40 years in the UK”. Only 16% of patients live five years after diagnosis and only 10% survive 10 years.
The proportion of patients diagnosed at stage one or two increased from 19.5% in 2013 to 29% in 2019, yet about one in three is only diagnosed as an emergency, for example when someone attends the ER, and 87% of those cases are already stage three or four.
NHS England is conducting small-scale trials in which people, generally in poorer areas where smoking rates are highest, are offered the opportunity to have a CT scan to check their lungs, sometimes using a scanner in the back of a truck in a supermarket. parking lot.
An NHS spokesperson said: “The NHS introduced lung cancer scanning trucks in supermarket parking lots to screen people at risk for lung cancer and detecting cancers early has remained a priority throughout the pandemic with 200,940 people referred for screening only in December. “
