Northwestern Medicine study pushes for expanded lung cancer screenings

CHICAGO (WLS) -- Northwestern Medicine is launching a new lung health center to help detect lung cancer at earlier ages.

This comes after a new study shows the cancer is impacting young women and non-smokers.

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Doctors at Northwestern Medicine said nearly 80% of lung cancer cases aren't discovered until they've reached advanced stages. They say by lowering the age of when to get screened for lung cancer more lives will be given a fighting chance.

"I had no symptoms," Danielle Hoeg said. "I had no idea I was healthy. I take care of myself. I don't smoke."

And yet, Hoeg was still diagnosed with lung cancer.

"I'd be walking down the street, and every young woman who walked by, I think, oh my gosh, could they possibly have lung cancer?" Hoeg said. "Do I need to stop them and tell them that they need to go get checked?"

According to the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force of nearly 1,000 consecutive patients treated for lung cancer at Northwestern, researchers discovered only 35% would have qualified for screening.

It's why Northwestern Medicine is helping to expand low dose CT screening by launching a comprehensive lung health center to detect lung, heart and bone conditions earlier.

"If we extend the screening from 40 years onwards, and go away from risk-based screening, we could really capture most lung cancer at early stage," Dr. Ankit Bharat with the Lung Cancer Center said.

Dr. Bharat said the current recommendation for an annual lung cancer screening is for adults 50 and up who are smokers or have quit in the last 15 years.

He said their research has found current recommendation excludes two thirds of patients.. Disproportionately impacting women and non-smokers. Changing the recommendation to an earlier age, he said, will save lives.

"We can achieve our goal of detecting lung cancer at an early stage, more than 80% of the time, if that model was followed," Dr. Bharat said.

"Continuously think about how lucky I was, and I need other women, other young people, to have the same luck I did," Hoeg said.

Northwestern Medicine said their early lung screening scan takes less than 10 seconds and doesn't need any dyes but does provide a complete picture of the chest cavity, creating a baseline image patients can keep for life.

Unfortunately, their screening recommendation is not universal, so any lung cancer screening for non-smokers under 50 would likely be out of pocket. However, the Lung Health Center at Northwestern does offer free screenings.