7 Healthcast: Catching cancer

The key to conquering lung cancer is detecting it early.

"If you can pick it up at stage one and remove it surgically about 70 to 80 percent of those patients are going to be alive at five years," lung cancer Oncologist Dr. Bruce Johnson, of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute said. "There is no approved way of detecting lung cancer early."

But now, a new study shows CT scans may be the answer.

"If you screen people with CT scans you can pick up the vast majority of people with very early lung cancer," Dr. Johnson said.

And when lung cancer is detected by a CT scan, the tumor can be removed early, increasing the survival rate.

"The patients who get their lung cancer detected by CT scan... 80 percent of them are alive at five years in comparison with about 15 percent of patients who are alive at five years if they've either had their lung cancer detected, because they developed symptoms or underwent a chest x-ray," Dr. Johnson said.

More trials need to be done to determine who should be screened and at what age.

"Those who have their lung cancers detected by CT scanning have a much better outcome than those who are conventionally diagnosed," Dr. Johnson said.

If you are a current or former smoker, talk to your doctor about getting a cat scan of the chest. For this to be effective, you have to be screened annually.

This study is in the New England Journal of Medicine.

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