Dayton Chronicle - Your Hometown News Source

Dayton General Hospital has recently acquired accreditation from the American College of Radiology and is now certified to do Low Dose lung cancer screening CTs. These annual scans are almost 100% covered by Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance companies as it is considered preventative maintenance. Qualified patients will not only benefit from the minimal to no financial obligation, but the increased chance of catching cancer early gives the patient better odds of fighting cancer.

Cancer can go undetected and show no symptoms until it is too late. By getting this annual screen, doctors are allowed to catch cancer before it is too late. The criteria for the scan is minimal as well.

If you are over the age of 55 and have smoked in the last 15 years or currently smoke, you could be in a high-risk group for lung cancer and a simple scan could help your health care provider monitor and possibly catch lung cancer early, when treatment can be early and most effective.

A quick Google search of "Lung cancer screening" will pull up an abundant number of articles regarding the low dose CT scan that is now offered at Dayton General Hospital, Harvard Health states "Lung cancer is common, relative to other cancers, so you're not looking for a needle in a haystack. If it's caught at a very early stage, it often can be treated effectively with surgery and even cured."

In another article, the American Cancer Society is quoted as saying "In recent years, a test known as a low-dose CAT scan or CT scan (LDCT) has been studied in people at a higher risk of getting lung cancer. LDCT scans can help find abnormal areas in the lungs that may be cancer.

Research has shown that using LDCT scans to screen people at higher risk of lung cancer saved more lives compared to chest x-rays. For higher risk people, getting yearly LDCT scans before symptoms start helps lower the risk of dying from lung cancer."

And in an article published by Cancer.Org, the author states "When detected early, lung cancer patients have more treatment options and a far greater chance of survival. The five-year survival rate for those diagnosed before the cancer has spread rises from 18 out of every 100 people to 55 out of every 100. But, the key is being tested for lung cancer early."

With this early detection scan now available at Dayton General Hospital, we would like to encourage everyone in the community to ask their primary doctor if you qualify for a screen that could possibly save your life. Not only are these scans 100% covered by most insurances, including Medicaid and Medicare, but they also utilize over 50% lower doses than a regular CT.

We may not be able to predict the future, but with the information provided in these low-dose scans, we can be better prepared and detect cancer early. If you currently smoke, or have smoked in the last 15 years, ask your doctor if you qualify for this early detection scan.