TUESDAY, Aug. 9, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Smokers for whom annual low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) screening is not recommended may have an elevated risk of lung cancer, according to a study published online July 28 in JAMA Oncology.

Charles Faselis, MD, of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C., and colleagues examined lung cancer risk in older smokers for whom LDCT screening is not recommended using data from 4,279 people aged 65 and over. Incident lung cancer was assessed during a median of 13.3 years of follow-up.

Researchers found that incident lung cancer occurred in 0.5, 5.0 and 5.0% of 1,973 never smokers, 100 current smokers smoking less than 20 pack-years and 516 former smokers smoking 20 or more pack-years with 15 or more years. more years of smoking cessation. The cause-specific hazard ratios for incident lung cancer in the two groups for which LDPT is not recommended were 10.54 and 11.19 for current non-heavy smokers and for former smokers who had quit. under 15, respectively, compared to non-smokers. After adjusting for age, sex, and race, the hazard ratios were 10.06 and 10.22, respectively.

“These results suggest that future studies should investigate whether annual LDCT screening might reduce lung cancer mortality in these smokers,” the authors write. “Future studies should also include the development of machine learning and/or artificial intelligence algorithms to identify high-risk subsets of these smokers to optimize the risk-benefit ratio of such screening. “

One author disclosed financial ties to several pharmaceutical companies.

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