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Study Summary
Recent studies have found that chest CT scans can be beneficial for lung cancer screening. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many chest CT scans were performed on a large population. This study aimed to describe the incidence and characteristics of lung cancer detected on chest CT scans done for suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection, outside of a clinical trial setting.
Key Findings
- Over the study period, 24,390 patients had at least one chest CT scan.
- 72 lung cancer diagnoses were made, with an incidence of 0.30%.
- Median age of diagnosed patients was 67.4 years, with 50.0% being current smokers and 55.6% having adenocarcinoma.
- Half of the lung cancer patients did not meet the National Lung Screening Trial inclusion criteria.
- 36.1% of patients were diagnosed at an early stage, with 34.7% of them receiving radical curative treatment.
- 26 patients died during the follow-up, but none were in early stages.
- The median overall survival in lung cancer patients was 693 days.
Implications
A large-scale chest CT scan strategy for suspected or documented COVID-19 infection has allowed for a significant proportion of early-stage lung cancer diagnoses, all of which have benefited from curative treatment.
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