Lung most cancers screening (LCS) tips ought to embrace occupational publicity standards for folks reminiscent of firefighters, in keeping with a research printed August 20 in Lung.
A staff led by Savan Shah, MD, of Rush College Medical Middle in Chicago reported that, amongst a cohort of 1,347 firefighters who underwent low-dose CT imaging (LDCT), solely 14.6% have been eligible for the check in keeping with U.S. Preventive Companies Activity Power (USPSTF) suggestions — although some have been discovered to have high-risk lung nodules that required intervention or surveillance.
“Firefighting is understood to be carcinogenic to people,” the group wrote. “Nonetheless, present lung most cancers screening tips don’t account for occupational publicity.”
Tobacco smoke is the commonest threat issue for lung most cancers, however publicity to carcinogens additionally will increase threat, the staff famous, writing that firefighters “could also be uncovered to carcinogenic constructing supplies reminiscent of asbestos, diesel fumes, combustion merchandise of fires, chemical compounds in firefighting foams, and extra.”
Shah’s group sought to make clear any associations between firefighters and lung most cancers threat by way of a research that included information from 1,347 firefighters (median age, 51) recruited from the Chicago Hearth Division Native 2 Union who underwent lung most cancers screening between April 2022 and June 2023 as a part of a pilot program established by the college. Of the research contributors, 66.7% have been by no means people who smoke, 25.6% have been former people who smoke, and seven.7% have been present people who smoke.
The investigators discovered the next:
- Among the many firefighters who underwent LDCT, 1,339 (99.4%) have been found to have a lung nodule.
- Forty-one (3%) firefighters had high-risk (Lung-RADS 3 or 4) nodules that required intervention or surveillance.
- Of those firefighters with high-risk nodules, 17.1% required intervention (video-assisted thoracoscopic surgical procedure, biopsy, endobronchial ultrasound and biopsy, bronchoscopy, or minimally invasive lung resection), however solely 14.6% have been eligible for lung most cancers screening based mostly on present tips.
- LDCT recognized seven high-risk nodules (0.5%) that required procedural intervention, and 6 (85.7%) of those have been present in people not eligible for screening.
- Of firefighters with high-risk nodules, 57.1% have been never-smoking people not eligible for screening.
These research findings counsel that “rigorously chosen occupational exposures needs to be thought-about within the improvement of future lung most cancers screening tips,” Shah and colleagues wrote.
“Based mostly on the outcomes offered right here, firefighters of any age or smoking historical past might profit from LDCT lung most cancers screening,” they concluded.
The whole research might be discovered right here.
