Lung Cancer Screening (PDQ®)–Health Professional Version

Changes to This Summary (12/14/2018)

The PDQ cancer information summaries are reviewed regularly and updated as new information becomes available. This section describes the latest changes made to this summary as of the date above.

Overview

Added Overdiagnosis as a new subsection.

Harms of Screening

Revised text to state that data from the National Lung Screening Trial showed a persistent gap of about 120 excess lung cancer cases in the low-dose helical computed tomography group compared with the chest radiograph group; this suggests that 18% of screen-detected lung cancers were overdiagnosed, although long-term follow-up is needed. Also added text to state that in another study, overdiagnosis was estimated at 67% (Heleno et al. as reference 14).

Revised text to state that this suggests that about 25% of the 307 cancers diagnosed as the result of annual chest x-ray were overdiagnosed.

This summary is written and maintained by the PDQ Screening and Prevention Editorial Board, which is editorially independent of NCI. The summary reflects an independent review of the literature and does not represent a policy statement of NCI or NIH. More information about summary policies and the role of the PDQ Editorial Boards in maintaining the PDQ summaries can be found on the About This PDQ Summary and PDQ® - NCI's Comprehensive Cancer Database pages.

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