Screening Process- Lung Cancer

We cannot say that all the screening methods used for lung cancer can end up with true results. Sometimes, the results obtained from these methods could be wrong. This may even lead to a death of the victim. If the screening says false result, then the victim will not care about the disease and he/ she will not quit smoking habit. Eventually, the lung cancer causing cells will develop fast inside the lungs and may lead to an advanced stage. After reaching the advanced stage only, the victim will realize the effect of lung cancer. Therefore, there is a delay in seeking medical facilities which may lead to even death of the patient. On the other hand, there are chances that screening results may come out as abnormal even if there is no presence of cancer. This causes anxiety and mental related problems to the person who actually does not have lung cancer inside the body. Therefore, the screening result alone is not helpful in determining the lung cancer. It should be accompanied with any other detection techniques.

No detecting method of lung cancer is ‘always’ accurate. There may be some error occur in the detection technique. For a screening technique to be used, it needs to be accurate i.e, the result obtained should be strictly correct and also it needs to be specific. There should not be any results deviated from the actual result expected. The negative point associated with CT lung cancer screening is the spots which are not cancerous are also detected as the cancerous. This will lead to some unnecessary treatments in the future. In some cases, even operations may be carried out because of the false results. Also there is a problem regarding radiation exposure. The radiation from the CT scan will affect the body parts and cause some other ailments in the body. Since radiations have many negative impacts inside the body, the exposure to it during the screening process can be reduced. Besides these negative points, there are many positive features regarding the screening process in the diagnostic process of the disease.

As we all know, lung cancer is an expensive disease and it needs continuous care especially when the disease is detected at the advanced stage. But when the disease is diagnosed in the commencing stage, then the cost spent for the further treatment will be less. Also the chance to get rid of the disease also increases. This all can be achieved by the screening process. Because, with the help of screening process, we can detect the disease at the earliest. Therefore the treatment procedure can be finalized and there will not be series of treatments will be taken place in the case of early detection of cancer. So, lung cancer screening if of great importance for a smoker and he/she should understand the need for screening to increase the survival rate in the future. There should be awareness among the public about the early detection and the role of screening process in this disease. This will reduce the risk of the disease to some extent and many lives can be saved on the earth.

Should everyone undergo screening? The answer for his question has changed before few years. Because, few years ago there was not a definite tool available for screening purposes. But recently, developments in the clinical research have shown that screening lung cancer with low dose CT has protected many people from the verge of death. At this point, because of recent developments, there is no definite guideline about exactly who should go for screening process. But in recent clinical trials, people who undergone screening process are chain smokers. However, there are certain guidelines have given by the NCCN that current screening processes are meant to smokers who are very much exposed to smoking habit. Also people who have exposed to some other environmental factors like radon, any other cancer causing chemicals can take screening process. People with family of history cancer also come under the guidelines provided by NCCN. But smokers and formers smokers are at high danger side and they need the screening process at the earliest to get benefited.

Lung cancer screening is not a single step test but it involves series of procedures followed by an initial test conducted on a person who is suspecting to have lung cancer. The result obtained from the first test of this process will form a critical opinion about the presence of lung cancer in the body of the patient. If any presence of cancer cells is detected in the results obtained from the first step, then series of process will be taken place to confirm the presence of cancer in lungs. The additional tests conducted in the process play a crucial role in detecting the cancer, because from these results only the doctors will evaluate the stage of the cancer and the further treatment options. The aim of this screening process is to detect the presence of cancer in the lungs within it has spread all over the body, reaching its advanced degree of infection. Not only for lung cancer, but also screening process can be done to all types of cancers including breast, liver, etc.,