Plenty has changed since 1957 when Surgeon General Leroy E. Burney and the U.S. Public Health Service recognized the link between smoking and lung cancer.
Although great strides have been taken to educate on the community on the risks of smoking, it is still the number one cause for lung cancer and lung cancer is a major health concern.
Responsible for more deaths than breast, ovarian, uterine, colon, prostate and brain cancers combined, lung cancer is reported to account for 25 percent of all cancer deaths. An estimated 154,000 Americans are expected to die from the disease this year, according to the American Cancer Association.
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Dennis Tishko, M.D., Director of Thoracic Oncology for Broward Health, has been a thoracic surgeon for 25 years, and is passionate about treating and preventing lung cancer. According to Tishko, even though smoking is still the most significant risk factor for lung cancer, recent years have seen an increase in patients who do not smoke.“Sadly, lung cancer accounts for five times more deaths than breast cancer,” said Tishko. “But we do not talk about it regularly and 95 percent of the population is not being screened for the disease.”
Not only does lung cancer present a high prevalence rate, it also shows no significant symptoms until later stages, making early screenings the main source for detection.
“In later stages, patients may present weight loss, wheezing and hemoptysis or coughing blood,” said Tishko. “By then the disease has probably spread beyond the lungs, making it harder to treat. Early detection can significantly lower the chance of dying from lung cancer.”
A low dose CT scan of the thoracic area is all that is needed to screen for lung cancer. It does not require needles or infusion and only minimal exposure to radiation.
“A study published by the National Institute of Health shows that the all-cause mortality, or deaths due to any factor, is reduced by seven percent when the scan is performed,” said Tishko. “As an added benefit, as we capture other organs, we can detect other conditions that would have remained otherwise unknown.”
For Tishko, the main obstacle preventing people from getting lung cancer screenings is a lack of education, yet he remains optimistic.
“If we have been able to convince people to get mammographies and colonoscopies,” said Tishko, “we can certainly explain the importance of a CT scan to detect lung cancer.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends people between the ages of 55 and 80 who smoke or have quit smoking within the last 15 years and have a history of heavy smoking to request a yearly lung cancer screening.
