Adherence to Annual Follow-Up Lung Cancer Screening Low

TUESDAY, Oct. 11, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Adherence to annual screening among persons screened and entered into the American College of Radiology Lung Cancer Screening Registry (LCSR) is low, according to a study published online Oct. 11 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Gerard A. Silvestri, M.D., from the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, and colleagues defined sociodemographic characteristics and adherence among persons screened and entered into the LCSR in 2015 to 2019. In addition, characteristics were examined among respondents in the 2015 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) who were eligible for screening.

The researchers found that 90.8 percent of the 1,159,092 persons who were screened met the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) eligibility criteria. Screening recipients in the LCSR were older, more likely to be female, and more likely to currently smoke than adults from the NHIS who met the criteria (prevalence ratios, 1.29, 1.15, and 1.17, respectively). Only 22.3 percent of those with an initial low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) had a repeat annual LDCT. Overall, 34.3 and 40.3 percent were adherent if follow-up was extended to 24 and more than 24 months, respectively.

"Successful screening programs take time to mature. Colorectal and breast cancer screening have had decades of experience in increasing uptake," the authors write. "The primary care community should leverage this experience to ensure that lung cancer screening is delivered to the persons most likely to benefit, and with increased attention to the nearly doubling of the number of eligible persons with the 2021 update of the USPSTF criteria."

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