NYU Langone offers chance to participate in lung cancer early detection study

NYU Langone Medical Center is a pioneer in lung cancer screening and offers comprehensive screening for individuals at risk for lung cancer. The NYU Langone Lung Cancer Screening Center is distinguished by its multidisciplinary approach and wealth of experience and is under the direction of the Divisions of Pulmonary Medicine, Thoracic Radiology and Thoracic Surgery. NYU Langone offers patients a personalized consultation with a team of experts across a range of specialties.

NYU Langone has historically played a leadership role in lung cancer research and continues to do so today. NYU Langone radiologists have used computed tomography (CT) scans for lung cancer screening since the 1990s and, with collaborators at Cornell University Medical Center, published the original study on CT screening to detect early lung cancer in 2000. More recently, a National Cancer Institute-sponsored study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011 revealed that screening of heavy smokers with CT can decrease lung cancer mortality by 20 percent compared with chest x-ray. These findings, researchers say, are significant and support the importance of high risk lung cancer screening.

"Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States for both men and women and research shows that using CT scans to screen the lungs of people at higher risk of lung cancer led to early detection and saved lives," said Harvey I. Pass, MD, Stephen E. Banner Professor of Thoracic Oncology, Departments of Surgery and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Division of Thoracic Surgery, and a Principle Investigator in the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) of the National Cancer Institute. "Certain patients, especially current and former smokers, would greatly benefit from this."

Most lung cancers are discovered at late stages, when treatment is more challenging. CT screening allows the diagnosis of lung cancer at its earliest and most treatable stages. According to the National Cancer Institute, estimates of new cases and deaths from lung cancer (non-small cell and small cell combined) in the United States in 2012 will be over 225,000 and over 150,000 respectively.

Since 2000 NYU Langone has been a part of the National Cancer Institute Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) - which includes dozens of institutions to help accelerate the translation of biomarker information into clinical applications and to evaluate new ways of testing cancer in its earliest stages and for cancer risk. Over 1,300 individuals have participated in the medical center's Lung Cancer Biomarker Center of the EDRN, undergoing CT scans for lung cancer screening; and more than 30 lung cancer cases have been diagnosed through the program.

NYU Langone offers participants the chance to undergo a low-dose CT scan to evaluate for signs of early lung cancer as well as participate in a National Cancer Institute-funded lung cancer early detection study. For more information, go to The NYU Langone Medical Center Lung Cancer Screening Program.