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Lung cancer screening on the horizon
Lung cancer a major killer of women, a conference will be told |
Improved methods for detecting lung cancer could lead to a screening system similar to the one used for cervical cancer.
 Lung cancer accounts for more deaths than any other malignancy in the developed world  |
| Dr Jeremy George |
The conference, at the Royal Society of Medicine, will also hear that undue attention given to high profile conditions such as breast cancer is hampering lung cancer treatment and prevention.
Dr Jeremy George, a consultant chest physician at University College London Hospitals, will outline research into fluorescence bronchoscopy, a new way of detecting abnormalities which picks up the smallest cancers and pre-cancers.
Intense blue light
It does so using intense blue light in the patient's airway, which makes the damaged tissue fluorescent and therefore visible, unlike the current white light bronchoscopy method.
Dr George said: "Lung cancer accounts for more deaths than any other malignancy in the developed world, and has the poorest curative rates.
"This opens up the possibility of looking very carefully at extremely high risk patients such as heavy smokers and people who have been exposed to asbestos."
Early stage
He stressed, though, that the research was at an early stage and had yet to be evaluated though it was being investigated in the United States, Europe and Japan.
Professor Gordon McVie, of the Cancer Research Campaign, was also due to address the conference, highlighting the importance of combating smoking to bring down lung cancer rates.
"We wouldn't need to have a conference at all if we had an effective way of controlling tobacco," he said.
And he criticised the unbalanced concentration on conditions such as breast cancer. "Lung cancer gets one per cent of the coverage that breast cancer gets," he said.
"More women are now dying of lung cancer than breast cancer. If people talked about it as much as they do about breast cancer, we would make more of an impact."
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Royal Society of Medicine |
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Cancer Research Campaign |
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Lung Cancer Information Center |
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