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NYU Langone Offers Early Detection Lung Cancer Screening
Patients Benefit from World-Class Expertise of Multidisciplinary Team
Newswise — NYU Langone Medical Center is a pioneer in lung cancer screening and offers comprehensive screening for individuals at risk for lung cancer. The NYU Langone Lung Cancer Screening Center is distinguished by its multidisciplinary approach and wealth of experience and is under the direction of the Divisions of Pulmonary Medicine, Thoracic Radiology and Thoracic Surgery. NYU Langone offers patients a personalized consultation with a team of experts across a range of specialties.
NYU Langone has historically played a leadership role in lung cancer research and continues to do so today. NYU Langone radiologists have used computed tomography (CT) scans for lung cancer screening since the 1990s and, with collaborators at Cornell University Medical Center, published the original study on CT screening to detect early lung cancer in 2000. More recently, a National Cancer Institute-sponsored study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2011 revealed that screening of heavy smokers with CT can decrease lung cancer mortality by 20 percent compared with chest x-ray. These findings, researchers say, are significant and support the importance of high risk lung cancer screening.
"Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States for both men and women and research shows that using CT scans to screen the lungs of people at higher risk of lung cancer led to early detection and saved lives,” said Harvey I. Pass, MD, Stephen E. Banner Professor of Thoracic Oncology, Departments of Surgery and Cardiothoracic Surgery, Division of Thoracic Surgery, and a Principle Investigator in the Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) of the National Cancer Institute. "Certain patients, especially current and former smokers, would greatly benefit from this.”
Most lung cancers are discovered at late stages, when treatment is more challenging. CT screening allows the diagnosis of lung cancer at its earliest and most treatable stages. According to the National Cancer Institute, estimates of new cases and deaths from lung cancer (non-small cell and small cell combined) in the United States in 2012 will be over 225,000 and over 150,000 respectively.
Since 2000 NYU Langone has been a part of the National Cancer Institute Early Detection Research Network (EDRN) - which includes dozens of institutions to help accelerate the translation of biomarker information into clinical applications and to evaluate new ways of testing cancer in its earliest stages and for cancer risk. Over 1,300 individuals have participated in the medical center’s Lung Cancer Biomarker Center of the EDRN, undergoing CT scans for lung cancer screening; and more than 30 lung cancer cases have been diagnosed through the program.
NYU Langone offers participants the chance to undergo a low-dose CT scan to evaluate for signs of early lung cancer as well as participate in a National Cancer Institute-funded lung cancer early detection study. For more information, go to The NYU Langone Medical Center Lung Cancer Screening Program.
About the NYU Cancer Institute:
The research mission of the NYU Cancer Institute is to discover the origins of cancer and use that knowledge to eradicate the personal and societal burden of cancer in our community and around the world. Fifteen research programs are organized as scientific research programs, focused on the fundamental biology of cancer in general, and as disease-specific research programs centered on individual types of cancer, such as breast or lung cancer. Translational research, a hallmark of the institute, is finding new ways to integrate the extraordinary growth and understanding made in basic research with the ever-growing need for the development of new therapies and approaches in the clinic to a variety of cancers that have remained difficult to treat. To help translate discovery into clinical practice, the NYU Cancer Institute has embarked on five programs that integrate efforts in laboratory investigation and clinical care: cancer targets and novel therapeutics, community and environment, integrative health, molecular oncology/cancer genomics, and immune- and stem-cell-based therapies.
About NYU Langone Medical Center:
NYU Langone Medical Center, a world-class, patient-centered, integrated, academic medical center, is one of the nation’s premier centers for excellence in clinical care, biomedical research and medical education. Located in the heart of Manhattan, NYU Langone is composed of four hospitals – Tisch Hospital, its flagship acute care facility; the Hospital for Joint Diseases, one of only five hospitals in the nation dedicated to orthopaedics and rheumatology; Hassenfeld Pediatric Center, a comprehensive pediatric hospital supporting a full array of children’s health services; and the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, the world’s first university-affiliated facility devoted entirely to rehabilitation medicine– plus NYU School of Medicine, which since 1841 has trained thousands of physicians and scientists who have helped to shape the course of medical history. The medical center’s tri-fold mission to serve, teach and discover is achieved 365 days a year through the seamless integration of a culture devoted to excellence in patient care, education and research. For more information, go to www.NYULMC.org.
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