National guidelines failed to classify many younger African-American lung cancer patients as being eligible for lung cancer screening in a recent retrospective study, the lead author reported at the annual meeting of the American College of Chest Physicians.
The finding highlights a health disparity issue that may be addressed through an update of those guidelines that is in the works, said Carol Velez Martinez, MD, a third-year internal medicine resident at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in Shreveport, La.
About one-third of the lung cancer patients in the retrospective cohort study were diagnosed before the age of 55 years, which means they would not have been recommended for screening with low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) based on the 2013 lung cancer guidelines from the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), said Velez Martinez.
By contrast, 12.5% of screening-ineligible patients would have been counted as LDCT eligible based on guidelines from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), Velez Martinez and coauthors found in their analysis.
In a draft recommendation statement posted July 7, the USPSTF said they would now recommend that screening at age 50 years, rather than 55, and that the pack-years of smoking history that would make an individual eligible for screening would be dropped from 30 pack-years to 20, changes that task force members said would be more inclusive of African Americans and women.
