Refining Lung Cancer Screening Criteria in the Era of Value-Based Medicine

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer mortality worldwide, and while mortality is gradually decreasing in high-income countries for most cancers, lung cancer mortality is not decreasing and is actually increasing in women [1].Moreover, effective treatment for advanced stages of lung cancer remains elusive, suggesting a great need for early detection, if indeed efforts to prevent onset of smoking and rapid cessation fail.In 2011, the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) demonstrated that screening for lung cancer with three annual chest CT scans in smokers (or those who quit within 15 years) of at least 30 pack years, between 55-74 years old, reduced mortality by 20% compared to a single chest radiograph [2].As important as this finding was, in an era of excessive and rising health care costs, it is necessary to carefully assess cost-effectiveness and refine screening criteria to maximize value.In this issue [3], ten Haaf and colleagues applied microsimulation modeling to 576 different scenarios to determine the population-based cost effectiveness of lung cancer CT screening, using the Canadian health care system threshold ($50,000 Canadian dollars per life-year gained) as a benchmark.The optimal screening scenario thus identified included smokers (or those who quit <10 years prior) with a smoking history of at least 40 pack years to be screened annually from ages 55-75.They estimate that such a screening strategy would reduce mortality 9.05% compared to no screening at an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of $41,136 Canadian dollars (US$33,825, in 2015) per life-year gained.While they estimate this strategy would not catch as many lung cancers as using the criteria from the NSLT trial would, they predict the optimal strategy would be more cost-effective and would reduce expected false positive screens and lung cancer overdiagnosis compared to the NSLT criteria.The future goal will be to increase efficacy without additional cost.The desire to eliminate cancer is, in part, at odds with the move to value-based medicine.Value-defined as outcomes relative to cost-cannot be ignored, as health care occupies a large and increasing proportion of most nations' gross domestic product, particularly the United States.This battle has been playing out for several tumor types.For example, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recently suggested that screening mammography for breast cancer begin for the general population of women at age 50 [4], but the American Cancer Society [5] and other medical specialty organizations continue to press for earlier initiation of screening.Debate also rages as to the age at which screening should stop, given the limited life expectancy of elderly patients and that some cancers may show a different, less aggressive, biology in late life.The hard fact remains that when cost-effectiveness enters into the decision of whether to screen, some cancers will be missed that otherwise could have been caught early and cured.To maximize the benefit of screening strategies, studies such as the one in this issue are needed to

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