PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Helical CT scans reduce lung cancer mortality by 20 percent compared to chest X-rays

2010-11-05
(Press-News.org) PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In a major new study announced today by the National Cancer Institute, researchers including Brown University biostatistian Constantine Gatsonis and his colleagues found that screening for lung cancer using helical CT scanning reduced lung cancer deaths by 20 percent compared to using chest X-rays.

"The findings we're announcing today offer the first definitive evidence for the effectiveness of helical CT screening smokers for lung cancer " said Gatsonis, a lead biostatistician in the study and director of the American College of Radiology Imaging Network's (ACRIN) Biostatistics and Data Management Center, based at Brown's Center for Statistical Sciences. "This is a major step in the formulation of appropriate screening strategies for this deadly disease."

The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) was conducted by a consortium consisting of ACRIN and the Lung Screening Study (LSS). The consortium enrolled more than 53,000 current and former heavy smokers ages 55 to 74 into the NLST at 33 sites across the United States. Starting in August 2002, participants were enrolled during a 20-month period and randomly assigned to receive three annual screens with either low-dose helical CT (often referred to as spiral CT) or standard chest X-ray. A manuscript reporting on the design of the study appeared yesterday on the Web site of the journal Radiology.

"Everyone who participated in this trial has played an important role in providing hard evidence of a mortality benefit from CT screening for lung cancer as well as a road map for public policy development in the future," said Denise R. Aberle, M.D., the national principal investigator for NLST ACRIN, site co-principal investigator for the UCLA NLST team, and a deputy chair of ACRIN.

Helical CT uses X-rays to obtain a multiple-image scan of the entire chest compared to a standard chest X-ray that produces a single image of the whole chest in which anatomic structures overlie one another.

A secondary finding in the study showed overall deaths due to any factor, including lung cancer, were 7 percent lower in those screened with low-dose helical CT than in those screened with chest X-ray. Approximately 25 percent of deaths in the NLST were due to lung cancer, while other deaths were due to factors such as cardiovascular disease.

"The combined findings of a reduction in mortality due to lung cancer and in overall mortality are important for the overall interpretation and impact of the results from this study," Gatsonis said.

Today's announcement addresses only the primary objective of the NLST study: the lung cancer mortality comparison between helical CT and chest X-rays. Intensive analysis of the data collected in the study is now under way to address a host of questions, including the health care required to follow up screening findings, the impact of screening on quality of life, and the cost and cost-effectiveness of screening for lung cancer, Gatsonis said. The results of these analyses will provide crucial information for the eventual development of guidelines for screening for lung cancer.

Faculty and staff at the Brown Center for Statistical Sciences contributed methodologic expertise and leadership throughout the study, in collaboration with other ACRIN and LSS investigators, Gatsonis said. They collaborated on the original design and implementation of the study, worked on the collection and monitoring of the data, and prepared in-depth reports for the independent Data and Safety Monitoring Committee. Now they are doing the final analysis of the data and contributing to the interpretation of the findings.

Faculty and staff at the center also organized and carried out the data collection on the impact of screening on quality of life and smoking cessation. Ilana Gareen, research assistant professor of community health, is leading this effort.

"Many, many people across the country dedicated years of their lives to bring this study to its successful conclusion," Gatsonis said. "They should take pride in the results of their efforts announced today."

### The National Cancer Institute has additional information online about the study:

Questions and answers: www.cancer.gov/newscenter/qa/2002/nlstqaQA

Study fact sheet: www.cancer.gov/newscenter/pressreleases/NLSTFastFacts.

END



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Motor Neurone Disease Association study identifies MND biomarker

2010-11-05
A study funded by the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association, in collaboration with the Medical Research Council (MRC), has identified a common signature of nerve damage in the brains of MND patients. The study's exciting findings have been published in the prestigious journal Neurology (2 November 2010). These are the first results to be published from the ongoing Oxford Study for Biomarkers in MND/ALS (BioMOx). MND research is being held back by the lack of an early diagnostic test and predictable markers of the progression of the disease – biomarkers. Patients ...

The mind uses syntax to interpret actions

2010-11-05
Most people are familiar with the concept that sentences have syntax. A verb, a subject, and an object come together in predictable patterns. But actions have syntax, too; when we watch someone else do something, we assemble their actions to mean something, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. "There are oceans and oceans of work on how we understand languages and how we interpret the things other people say," says Matthew Botvinick of Princeton University, who cowrote the paper with his ...

AGU Journal highlights -- Nov. 4, 2010

2010-11-05
The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres (JGR-D), and Journal of Geophysical Research - Earth Surface (JGR-F). 1. Exploring climate patterns linking stratosphere, lower atmosphere Roughly every 28 months, the zonal winds in the stratosphere at the equator cycle from easterly to westerly and then back to easterly. Known to atmospheric scientists as the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO), these shifting wind patterns result when the energy from ...

Discovery shows promise against severe side effects

2010-11-05
November 4, 2010 – (BRONX, NY) -- A team of scientists has found a way to eliminate a debilitating side effect associated with one of the main chemotherapy drugs used for treating colon cancer. The strategy used in their preclinical research—inhibiting an enzyme in bacteria of the digestive tract—could allow patients to receive higher and more effective doses of the drug, known as CPT-11 or Irinotecan. The study, spearheaded by scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and involving collaborators at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University ...

Volcanic eruptions affect rainfall over Asian monsoon region

Volcanic eruptions affect rainfall over Asian monsoon region
2010-11-05
Scientists have long known that large volcanic explosions can affect the weather by spewing particles that block solar energy and cool the air. Some suspect that extended "volcanic winters" from gigantic eruptions helped kill off dinosaurs and Neanderthals. In the summer following Indonesia's 1815 Tambora eruption, frost wrecked crops as far away as New England, and the 1991 blowout of the Philippines' Mount Pinatubo lowered average global temperatures by 0.7 degrees F--enough to mask the effects of greenhouse gases for a year or so. Now, in research funded by the ...

UC doctoral student presents research at international conference

2010-11-05
Clement Loo, a University of Cincinnati doctoral student in the philosophy program, was one of the featured researchers at the biennial meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association Nov. 4-6 in Montreal, Quebec. The association promotes research, teaching and free discussion of issues in the philosophy of science. Loo presented research themed around a Nov. 4 session on biology, evolution and selection. His paper was titled, "Invasive Species and Evaluating the Relative Significance of the Shifting Balance Theory." The paper focused on the R.A. Fisher and Sewall ...

National Science Foundation launches "Innovation Nation"

2010-11-05
The National Science Foundation (NSF) today released the first in a series of video programs called Innovation Nation, hosted by veteran science and technology correspondent Miles O'Brien and currently airing nationally on the the Science Channel. Innovation Nation is a quick look at what happens when genius meets possibility: stories about some of the NSF-funded inventions and research shaping our world. The 26-part video series is produced by CBS News Productions, in partnership with the National Science Foundation and Discovery Science. Each episode is one minute ...

Food-allergy fears drive overly restrictive diets

2010-11-05
Many children, especially those with eczema, are unnecessarily avoiding foods based on incomplete information about potential food-allergies, according to researchers at National Jewish Health. The food avoidance poses a nutritional risk for these children, and is often based primarily on data from blood tests known as serum immunoassays. Many factors, including patient and family history, physical examination, and blood and skin tests, should be used when evaluating potential food allergies. The oral food challenge, in which patients consume the suspected allergenic food, ...

MU grad student simulates 100 years of farming to measure agriculture's impact on land and water quality

2010-11-05
COLUMBIA, Mo. – Estimating the long-term impact of agriculture on land is tricky when you don't have much information about what a field was like before it was farmed. Some fields in Missouri started producing crops more than a century ago—long before anyone kept detailed records about the physical and chemical properties of the soil in a field. Researchers can't go back in time to revisit old fields in their pristine state, but a University of Missouri graduate student did perhaps the next best thing, using a detailed computer model to simulate, year-by-year, the effects ...

Authors After Dark Reveal Nominations for Annual Bookie Award

2010-11-05
The motto of the organization is "Because Readers Rule Romance". Ballots were distributed to all attendees of the event, which included readers, bloggers and authors. Romance writers in 41 categories were nominated for their prestigous Bookie Award for 2010. My latest paranormal/shifter Where The Rain Is Made was nominated under "Best E-book Novel". You can find out more about Authors After Dark when voting opens in November here: About Where The Rain Is Made After a decadent-looking savage captures Francesca DuVall and her brother Marsh, she spends every waking ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Making a difference: Efficient water harvesting from air possible

World’s most common heart valve disease linked to insulin resistance in large national study

Study unravels another piece of the puzzle in how cancer cells may be targeted by the immune system

Long-sought structure of powerful anticancer natural product solved by integrated approach

World’s oldest lizard wins fossil fight

Simple secret to living a longer life

Same plant, different tactic: Habitat determines response to climate

Drinking plenty of water may actually be good for you

Men at high risk of cardiovascular disease face brain health decline 10 years earlier than women

Irregular sleep-wake cycle linked to heightened risk of major cardiovascular events

Depression can cause period pain, new study suggests

Wistar Institute scientists identify important factor in neural development

New imaging platform developed by Rice researchers revolutionizes 3D visualization of cellular structures

To catch financial rats, a better mousetrap

Mapping the world's climate danger zones

Emory heart team implants new blood-pumping device for first time in U.S.

Congenital heart defects caused by problems with placenta

Schlechter named Cancer Moonshot Scholar

Two-way water transfers can ensure reliability, save money for urban and agricultural users during drought in Western U.S., new study shows

New issue of advances in dental research explores the role of women in dental, clinical, and translational research

Team unlocks new insights on pulsar signals

Great apes visually track subject-object relationships like humans do

Recovery of testing for heart disease risk factors post-COVID remains patchy

Final data and undiscovered images from NASA’s NEOWISE

Nucleoporin93: A silent protector in vascular health

Can we avert the looming food crisis of climate change?

Alcohol use and antiobesity medication treatment

Study reveals cause of common cancer immunotherapy side effect

New era in amphibian biology

Harbor service, VAST Data provide boost for NCSA systems

[Press-News.org] Helical CT scans reduce lung cancer mortality by 20 percent compared to chest X-rays