There is a high cure rate for screen-detected lung cancers, according to a study presented at the 2022 annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America. Researchers estimated 20-year lung cancer-specific survival among 87,416 participants enrolled in a prospective, international, multicenter study of low-dose CT screening for lung cancer (I-ELCAP). The analysis included 1,285 I-ELCAP participants. The 20-year lung cancer-specific survival was 80%. Lung cancer-specific survival was 100%
for participants with non-solid consistency and part-solid consistency and 73% for participants with solid consistency. For participants with clinical stage 1a lung cancer, lung cancer-specific survival was 86%, regardless of consistency. Lung cancer-specific survival was 92% for participants with pathologic stage 1a lung cancer (≤10 mm in average diameter). “What we present here is the 20-year follow-up on participants in our screening program [who] were diagnosed with lung cancer and subsequently treated,” the study team said in a statement. “The key finding is that even after this long a time interval, they are not dying of their lung cancer.”
