The high prevalence of breast cancer screening — combined with a large cohort of lung cancer screening (LCS)-eligible women — provides an opportunity to reach women at risk for lung cancer at the time of their mammograms, researchers have reported.
Although lung cancer is the primary cause of cancer death in women, lung cancer screening rates are low, despite the fact that the pool of eligible individuals has been expanded. Making lung cancer screening available to women undergoing screening mammography “has been shown to increase LCS in this population,” wrote a team led by Vanhvilai Douangchai Wills of the American Cancer Society (ACS). The research was published May 26 in the Journal of the American College of Radiology.
Wills and colleagues assessed the proximity of mammography and lung cancer screening facilities to explore the opportunity to “further leverage screening mammography on a national level to increase LCS uptake among women.” They used a “geospatial approach” to do this, tracking mammography and LCS facilities at distances of 0 miles, 0.5 miles, and 1 mile.
They found that almost 40% of mammography facilities are within a mile of LCS facilities. But there are some disparities: Most of these facilities (59.5%) are in urban settings, indicating that women living in rural areas may not have the same access as their urban counterparts. In fact, “although less than 25% of all mammography facilities are within zero miles of LCS facilities, they are in counties where most of the LCS-eligible women and most of the women who have undergone mammography reside,” the group reported.
The bottom line? Leveraging mammography screening with LCS provides “an opportunity to reach women at risk for lung cancer to assess eligibility and offer convenient screening near the time of their mammograms,” the team wrote.
“Following previous methodologies on access to screening services, [our] study found that most nearby facilities are in more urban counties, particularly urban cores where most of the estimated population who have undergone mammography and could be evaluated for LCS eligibility reside,” it concluded. “Although we do not know whether … [individuals who] may be eligible for LCS in counties with nearby facilities have undergone mammography, reaching a subset of this population has the potential to raise the screening rates among women and save lives.”
The complete work can be found here.