Lung cancer screening
3.38 Trials of lung cancer screening conducted in the United States and Czechoslovakia in the 1970s using chest x-rays and/ or sputum cytology showed no reduction in cancer mortality.
However each of these trials had flaws and a further large study is currently underway in the United States. More recently it has been shown that low dose spiral CT scanning can identify lung cancer in asymptomatic individuals at high risk. While the results of these trials suggest that CT scanning may be a useful screening test for the early detection of lung cancer, we now need to know whether this would lead to a reduction in mortality. A proposal for a trial in the UK is currently under consideration by the MRC.
