One of the arguments against expanding screening is that it will simply cost too much. Yet Bharat points out that “the cost of treating someone with Stage I lung cancer is a fraction of the cost of treating Stage IV lung cancer.”

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People are also concerned about being exposed to radiation with low-dose CT scans. “We don’t want to give people radiation exposure unnecessarily,” says Herbst. But the amount of radiation exposure is quite low—only slightly higher than with a mammogram.

There are also concerns about incidental findings on these CT scans. “We can find things that are not lung cancer—it could be a benign lesion or a fungal infection that causes a nodule that’s harmless,” says Dr. Kim L. Sandler, a professor of radiology at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and director of the Vanderbilt Lung Screening Program. The possibility of incidental findings may concern some patients, but “incidental findings can be beneficial if they’re actionable,” she notes.

Original source: us