Screening for Lung Cancer: The Evolving Challenge

Cancer of the lung is the leading cause of cancer death in both women and men in the United States. In the year 2012, the estimate is for 226,160 new cases of lung cancer in the US, and 164,770 deaths; the five-year survival rate for lung cancer is 16%. This sobering outlook is due primarily to the fact that most patients have advanced disease at the time of presentation. Nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for approximately 85% of lung cancer diagnoses. For this subset of patients, surgery is often curative if presentation is early (stages I and II). Unfortunately, only approximately 30% of diagnoses fall within this early-stage category. Nearly a quarter of the US population actively smokes, and at the same time contributes to the downstream effects of secondhand smoke. While prevention remains the most important strategy to stem the epidemic of lung cancer, until that goal is realized there remains an urgent need for new and improved means of early diagnosis.