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- Review -

Efficacy of Lung Cancer Screening: Results of 4 Case-Control Studies Recently Conducted

Motoyasu Sagawa^1,2,9, Tomio Nakayama^1,3, Hiroko Tsukada^1,4, Kenji Nishii^1,5, Takashi Baba^1,6, Yuzo Kurita^1,4, Yasuki Saito^1,7, Masahiro Kaneko^1,8, Takaichiro Suzuki^1,3 and Shigefumi Fujimura^1,2
The Japanese Research Group for Lung Cancer Mass Screening¹, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer, Tohoku University, Sendai, Japan², Division of Epidemiology, Department of Field Research, Osaka Medical Center for Cancer and Cardiovascular Diseases, Osaka, Japan³, Department of Internal Medicine, Niigata Cancer Center Hospital, Niigata, Japan⁴, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Okayama Institute of Health and Prevention, Okayama, Japan⁵, Gunma Health Foundation, Maebashi, Japan⁶, Department of Thoracic Surgery, National Sendai Hospital, Sendai, Japan⁷, Division of Endoscopy, National Cancer Center Hospital, Tokyo, Japan⁸, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Kanazawa Medical University, Uchinada, Ishikawa, Japan⁹

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Concerning the question of the effectiveness of lung cancer screening by previous randomized controlled trials, the results of four case-control studies, conducted recently by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Japan, were reported at the IASLC 2000 congress, and revealed that lung cancer screening could decrease the risk for lung cancer deaths by 30-60%. However, the influence of lung cancer screening lasted for only 1 year, while that of some cancer screening programs for other organs lasted for more than 1 year, which indicates that, for lung cancer patients, the opportunity of cure would be lost by a miss in one screening. Since lung cancer screening with insufficient quality control does not lead to a decrease in lung cancer death, every effort for the improvement of quality control in screening systems must be made. Information disclosure on the quality control of each screening system, offered by many companies, should be strongly promoted through activating the Prefectural Council for Quality Assurance of Mass Screening.
key words: Lung cancer, Mass screening, Efficacy, Case-control study

Received: May 23, 2001
Accepted: September 6, 2001

JJLC 41 (6): 637-642, 2001