Thousands of lives could be saved if people at risk of Britain’s deadliest cancer are scrapped to prove it becomes unsustainable, a major NHS study has found -mach.
Taking smokers and ex-smokers a CT scan detects lung cancer tumors when they are early enough to still be removed, rather than growing. unconsciously, he shows.
Experts are urging the government to move to introduce routine CT scans of smokers and smokers to cut the high death toll from lung cancer. Approximately 48,000 people are diagnosed with the disease each year in the UK and 35,100 die from it – 96 each day.
Lung cancer is a very brutal cancer because it is difficult to diagnose and three out of four cases are diagnosed at stage three or four, when it is already too late for a potentially life-saving treatment. life.
However, the Summit study, run by disease experts at the trust of London University College Hospital NHS, offers real hope that lung cancer may be an early-found condition.
A CT scan meant that 70% of the growths found in human lungs were identified when the disease was at stage one or two – a significant increase in the normal rate of early diagnosis.
“It’s really a huge improvement for lung cancer,” Dr Sam Janes of UCLH, the case’s chief investigator, told the Warden. Lung cancer has never allowed anything to detect this devastating cancer earlier and offer therapeutic treatment to this number of lung cancer patients. ”
“It is important to highlight the effectiveness of CT scanning. In my lung cancer clinic at UCLH, seven out of 10 people have cancer that has been inoperable, non-removable, since they first saw a doctor. However, with the cancers we see with Summit, seven out of 10 could be cured, as they were detected earlier.
“We have a lot of patients who can’t believe they’re lucky to have been involved because they’ve been scanned, they’ve found a nodule – early cancer – and then they have had surgery. People will be discharged from hospital within three to five days and will return to work or as usual within six weeks. That stopped them from being admitted to a doctor maybe 18 months later with cancer that has spread and is often impossible to cure. ”
Janes and his team detected 180 cases of lung cancer among 12,100 smokers and post-smokers aged 55-78 in north central and north-east London, many from poor backgrounds. They voluntarily went through what was called a “lung health MOT” when they received a letter of invitation from their GP. Of those, 70% were found while still at level one or two.
Experts say the findings show that the government should move to introduce routine screening of smokers and ex-smokers to cut the horrific death toll from the disease.
“Now that CT screening for lung cancer is up and running, we very much hope that a lung cancer screening program will be introduced in England,” said Dr Robert Rintoul, chair of the Co. Lung Cancer UK, a group of leading experts on the disease and patient charities.
“Lung cancer is the biggest killer in the UK and early detection offers the best chance of medical treatment and more lives saved. “Screening could lead to a 25% drop in the number of deaths from lung cancer and 30-40% fewer deaths among women,” he said.
“The Gazetteer study will teach us more about how you can successfully implement CT screening in high-risk populations,” said Rintoul.
The results of the Summit are expected to be published in a medical journal later this year. They will add to the growing pressure on the UK National Screening Committee to introduce lung cancer screening, at least among smokers or former users, in the same way that people in certain age groups are already invited for breast, bowel and cervix. cancer. Previous studies in the U.S. and Europe have also shown that a CT scan can detect lung cancers that would otherwise have been hidden.
The depressive state of lung cancer is usually confirmed by the conclusion of Cancer Research UK “that the survival of lung cancer has not improved much in the last 40 years in the UK”. Only 16% of sufferers survive for five years after diagnosis and only 10% survive for 10 years.
The proportion of patients diagnosed at one or two levels rose from 19.5% in 2013 to 29% in 2019. However, only about one in three are diagnosed as emergency , for example, when someone is attending A&E, and 87% of these cases are already level three or four.
NHS England is carrying out small-scale tests that allow people, usually in deprived areas with the highest levels of smoking, to have a CT scan to examine their lungs, sometimes using a scanner in the back. truck in a car park supermarket.