CT scans offer lung cancer hope: Survival rates up sharply, study finds.

Byline: Ronald Kotulak

Oct. 26--A new generation of CT scanners that can detect lung cancer as small as a grain of rice--when the tumor is still highly curable--is raising hopes that screening may dramatically reverse the grim outlook for lung cancer, just as mammography did for breast cancer. A large, long-term study reported in Wednesday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that at least 88 percent of patients whose early-stage lung cancer was detected through CT screening would survive for 10 years after the tumor was surgically removed. The 10-year survival rate for people diagnosed with early lung cancer is usually about 70 percent. But 85 percent of tumors are not detected until they are more advanced and difficult to treat. Many experts applauded the findings and said doctors would now look more closely at using CT scans on patients at risk for the nation's top cancer killer. The scans are currently used to diagnose cancer once symptoms appear, not for routine screening.

But experts also cautioned that the results of even larger studies now under way are needed before CT scanning is broadly recommended for people at risk. Among the concerns about the new study is that…