Lung cancer screening

Prevention. The French health authorities have agreed to a small-scale trial of lung cancer screening in people who smoke. Tuesday 1^er february, the High Health Authority (HAS) published an opinion that opens the door to a small-scale experiment in lung cancer screening in people who use tobacco. The idea is not to introduce a massive screening, but to see how useful such a device would be. “The state of knowledge is still incomplete for the implementation of a systematic and organized screening program,” also supports the HAS in its notice. So let’s go to a “pilot program” that will be set up to assess the feasibility of such a device. In 2016, the HAS took a stand once morest the widespread screening by CT scan of lung cancer, which kills more than 30,000 French people every year, it is the deadliest cancer. New studies have been published, meanwhile, on the usefulness of such screening in smokers, the vast majority of lung cancer being linked to smoking. These studies tend to show that screening “in people with an increased risk of this cancer reduces the specific mortality of it,” according to the HAS. This therefore supports the potential interest of testing smokers, in the idea that lung cancer detected early has a much better chance of recovery than if it is detected at an advanced stage.