Benefits
Screening is a life-saving tool in the fight against cancer, helping us find the disease in its early stages when it can be more successfully treated. Lung cancer patients are actually almost 10 times as likely to live longer when they are diagnosed and treated early.
Lung cancer screening is easy, accessible, painless and generally covered by insurance (most insurance companies cover the cost of a low-dose CT scan).
Who Should Be Screened?
How Pack Years Are Calculated
A pack year is the number of packs of cigarettes a person smoked per day, multiplied by the number of years they have smoked. For example, 20 pack years could include 20 years where you smoked one pack a day OR 10 years where you smoked two packs a day.
What to Expect
A referral for a lung cancer screening could come from different sources – your primary care provider, pulmonologist or other specialist – who will determine if you’re eligible and if a scan is right for you. You will need a separate appointment for the scan.
Lung cancer screening consists of having a low-dose CT scan of the chest every year. The scan provides detailed images to identify any changes or abnormalities for follow-up.
A low-dose CT exposes patients to only 10% of the radiation compared to a regular CT scan. The scanner is an open machine, so patients do not feel claustrophobic. The scan only takes a few minutes, is pain-free, and does not involve needles, shots, or injections.