December 4, 2003

The Rebecca and John Moores UCSD Cancer Center is  partnering with the American Cancer Society to find heavy smokers, or those who have quit smoking within the past 15 years, to participate in a study of the effectiveness of chest X-rays and low-dose spiral computerized tomography (CT) scans in the early detection of lung center. The goal of the study is to determine if early detection can reduce the national death toll from lung cancer, the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Lung cancer kills an estimated 155,000 Americans each year – more than cancers of the breast, prostate, colon and pancreas combined.

The study is part of the National Lung Screening Trial, sponsored by the National Cancer Institute, which includes 30 sites across the U.S. and 50,000 former and current smokers.

Eric Goodman, M.D., UCSD assistant professor of radiology and principal investigator for the San Diego portion of the trial, noted that the study is important because an estimated 90 million former and current smokers in the U.S. are at high risk for developing lung cancer. Unlike many other cancers, lung cancer rates are not declining.

With lung cancer, because all of the blood in the body goes through the lungs to get oxygen, it only takes one lung cancer cell to break away and enter the bloodstream for lung cancer to metastasize, or spread. Currently, when lung cancer is detected, the disease has already spread outside the lung in 15 to 30 percent of cases.

“Often, by the time lung cancer is detected on an X-ray, cells may already have entered the bloodstream and spread throughout the body,” Goodman said. “With other types of cancers, a small cancer may well be limited to the tumor seen on a radiology exam.”

In the UCSD study, volunteers ages 55 to 74 will be selected by chance to receive either a chest X-ray or a spiral CT scan once a year for three years. The tests are free. Researchers will contact the participants periodically until 2009 to check on their health.

If lung cancer is detected in a study participant, it may be caught at an early stage. Researchers hope that early detection of the disease may reduce symptoms from cancer, result in milder treatment with fewer side effects, or prolong life, but this has not been scientifically demonstrated. Data gathered from this study will help clarify some of the uncertainties about the possible value of these screening exams.

For more information about the National Lung Screening Trial, call the Moores UCSD Cancer Center’s Clinical Trials Office, 858-657-7020.

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News media contact:
Nancy Stringer
619-543-6163

UCSD Health Sciences Communications HealthBeat: http://health.ucsd.edu/news/