Patients At Higher Risk Are Now More Eligible For Screening For Lung Cancer Thanks To New Guidelines: Do You Need To Be Screened?
New recommendations for lung cancer screenings have been released by the American Cancer Society (ACS). The guideline reevaluates who is at high risk of lung cancer and who should be checked annually, and it was published in the ACS journal “CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians” on Wednesday. Previously established at 30, the American Cancer Society (ACS) now advises yearly low-dose CT scans for individuals aged 50 to 80 with a history of smoking 20 or more pack years. According to ACS, a pack year is equal to smoking one pack, or around 20 cigarettes, every day for a year. This is equivalent to smoking one pack per day for twenty years or two packs per day for ten years. The number of years that have passed after stopping smoking is no longer a factor in starting or stopping yearly testing. As a result, those who have quit smoking for 15 years will remain eligible for screenings because the risk of lung cancer increases with ageing, according to the American Cancer Society. “Tha...