Who is eligible for lung cancer screening?

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VIDEO | 01:25
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The U.S. task force revised its recommendations to lower the age range.  So, now, they're recommending patients between the ages of 50 to 80 and they also lowered the amount of tobacco exposure.  So, they reduced the tobacco exposure requirement to the equivalent of one pack per day for 20 years. The significance of these amended recommendations is that it's going to make a lot more people eligible for screening and interestingly, it also will increase the number of minorities such as African-Americans and Latin-Americans as well as women that would be eligible for screening because it's well recognized that in some of these populations, actually lung cancer rates are higher at a lower tobacco exposure. Lung cancer screening is very easy.  Actually, at Memorial, we have some digital tools that allow patients to find out if they're eligible within three questions online. It does require a five-minute visit with a practitioner just to make sure that they're eligible. Then the CT scan actually is a non-contrast five-minute scan.  So, actually, if you added up the entire time that it would take to do screening, it amounts about 15 minutes plus travel.