In New York state, patients who want to make sure they don’t have the most deadly form of cancer can’t ask a doctor to use advanced scanning methods to check them for it.
It may seem like an unnecessary paradox, but the risks associated with a false finding of lung cancer symptoms are real enough that a number of other states similarly bar the practice.
That could change, however, if a National Cancer Institute study of almost 50,000 current and former smokers determines that advanced examination devices — like the kind available in health facilities in Erie and Niagara counties — are actually useful in detecting lung cancer and helping patients live longer.
“The study, from what has come out so far, is very promising, very encouraging,” said Dr. David Ludwig, a radiologist with Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center.
Just a few years ago, lung cancer screenings were a regular practice at the Summit Healthplex, Ludwig said. But concerns over the relatively high number of false positives that came up in CT studies around the world led New York and other states to halt the practice.
Between 25 percent and 60 percent of current or former smokers have some kind of abnormality that, when viewed by even trained medical examiners, can appear to be lung cancer. But after diagnosis, true or false, complications can set in.
A small piece of lung is usually removed to look for signs of a malignant spread, and open lung surgery can be required in some cases. Both carry the risk of infection or failure.
“The question has become whether we are really helping patients, or are we creating unnecessary biopsies in patients that don’t really need anything,” Ludwig said.
A study in February by researchers at the New York-Presbyterian/Weill Medical Center at Cornell found that current and former smokers should be screened for lung cancer before the typical symptoms set in.
That’s because high-tech CT scanners can find tumors smaller than 15 millimeters — or the size of a dime — which are almost all curable, according to the study.
Contact Kevin Purdy at 693-1000, Ext. 107.
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