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Vol.42 No.7 contents | Japanese/English |
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The Efficacy of Lung Cancer Screening: The Present Japanese Screening System and Thoracic CT Screening
Motoyasu Sagawa1, Makoto Sugita1, Tsutomu Sakuma11Department of Thoracic Surgery, Kanazawa Medical University, Japan.
Although the results of randomized controlled trials evaluating the efficacy of lung cancer screening in the 1970s -early 1980s failed to show that lung cancer mortality would decrease by screening, four case-control studies evaluating the efficacy of lung cancer screening in the 1990s were recently reported from Japan. These indicated that screening would decrease the risk for lung cancer deaths by 30-60%. However, quality control in the screening system is not enough in some parts of Japan. Prefectural governments should evaluate the quality of screening systems in each region and report the results. Preliminary reports concerning lung cancer screening using thoracic CT revealed that not only the detection rate of lung cancer but also the survival rate of detected lung cancer patients were very high. However, overdiagnosis bias must affect the results, and a randomized controlled trial should be conducted to evaluate the true efficacy of lung cancer screening using thoracic CT.
key words: Lung cancer screening, Efficacy, Quality control, Thoracic CT screening, Overdiagnosis bias
JJLC 42 (7): 846-850, 2002
