Der Radiologe
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Lung cancer is the leading cause of death from malignancy. Due to a lack of early symptoms patients usually undergo therapy at advanced tumor stages when prognosis is poor. Feasibility studies of low-dose spiral CT screening of heavy smokers have shown that many small, resectable lung cancers can be diagnosed at early stages using simple diagnostic algorithms based on size and attenuation of detected pulmonary nodules with a small proportion of invasive procedures for benign lesions. ⋯ However, mortality reduction by lung cancer screening with low-dose CT has yet to be demonstrated. Several randomised controlled trials are under way to assess possible mortality reduction by comparison of mortalities in a screening group and a control group. It is hoped that through international cooperation data from these trials can be pooled to allow for statistically significant conclusions as early as possible.