PatIntNews

A study published in the May issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology, the official journal of the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer states that Dr. Hisao Asamura and his team of researchers at The National Cancer Center Hospital in Tokyo, Japan studied 2,281 reports of lung cancer patients who underwent resection surgery during the period 2000 and 2006 and classified the patients on the basis of technique used for detection of the disease. He stated that there was a noticeable difference in "five year survival rate" for patients diagnosed with CT scans with 91.2 percent in comparison to those diagnosed with X-rays with 77.8 percent.

The researchers also demonstrated the prevalence of five year survival rate on the basis of detection type which included screen detection, symptom detection and incidental detection. All the three categories showed varied degrees of five year survival rates, with patients diagnosed through screening showing the maximum with a percentage of 79.6, then followed by patients diagnosed on the basis of symtoms with 74.6 percent. The lowest five-year survival rate (64.6 percent) was demonstrated by the category of patients that were diagnosed incidentally.

The above findings indicate that detection of lung cancer through screening , particularly CT-scans can have improving effect on patient prognosis through accurate diagnosis and detecting the disease at an early stage. The CT-scans allow the pysicians timely detection of the cancerous growths while the tumor is at an early stage and physically smaller, thus making it more operable. It is important to keep these findings in mind as the lung cancer prognosis and survival is mainly dependent on the stage of the disease upon diagnosis.