Despite decreasing prevalence of cigarette smoking, lung cancer continues to be the most common and deadliest malignancy across genders. While the five-year survival rate of lung cancer remains low, it has started to improve over the last few years. This progress has largely been attributed to a stage shift increasing the proportions of early-stage lung cancers and improved therapies for locally advanced and metastatic disease. The stage shift is attributed to the implementation of lung cancer screening and the increased detection of incidental lung nodules. However, there are many remaining challenges.
More than 93 million CT scans, many of them imaging the lungs, are performed annually in the United States. The detection of lung nodules continues to dramatically increase; more than 1.6 million nodules are detected in the U.S. annually. Most of these nodules are incidentally detected and guideline-based follow-up for these nodules remains suboptimal (50% to 65%). Lack of timely communication of nodule diagnoses to patients and suboptimal patient adherence with follow up results in stage progression and decreased treatment survival.
