A new study from Northwestern Medicine suggests that current lung cancer screening guidelines may be missing most Americans who develop the disease — and researchers say it’s time for a major change.
Published in JAMA Network Open, the study analyzed nearly 1,000 lung cancer patients who were treated at Northwestern Medicine between 2018 and 2023.
The goal was to see how many of those patients would have qualified for screening under existing guidance from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF).
USPSTF currently recommends annual CT scans for adults ages 50 to 80 who have a 20 pack-year smoking history and either still smoke or quit within the last 15 years.
Only about 35% of those diagnosed with lung cancer met the current criteria to undergo screenings.
That means roughly two-thirds of patients would not have been flagged for testing before their diagnosis.