Monday, August 22, 2005

CT Scans for Lung Cancer: Double-edged Sword

NYTimes: Opinion: Warned, but Worse Off
And hasn't it been reported that people whose lung cancer is found early by such scans have a five-year survival rate of 80 percent, as opposed to 15 percent for the typical lung-cancer patient whose condition is detected later? Why not get scanned today?

The answer may surprise most Americans: we just don't know if lung cancer screening does more good than harm. While the benefits of screening are unproven, the harms - one familiar, the other less so - are certain.

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