Hi, my name's Aimee Strong. I'm a nurse practitioner at UVA Health and I run our lung cancer screening program. Lung cancer is one of the most common cancers in both men and women. And each year more people die of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancer combined. We don't think that there's just one cause for lung cancer, it's more likely a combination of risk factors and exposures over time. Some of these risk factors include smoking tobacco. A certain percentage of lung cancers are thought to be related to smoking, but other things such as exposure to secondhand smoke, radon, asbestos, diesel exhaust and certain chemicals may increase a person's risk. And a certain percentage of people who get lung cancer were never smokers. So the bottom line is, if you have lungs, you can get lung cancer.
Even though lung cancer is a difficult disease, the number of deaths are slowly declining, partly because people are quitting smoking, but also because of recent advances in treatment and early detection. When lung cancer is caught early, the cure rates can be very high. So how do we find lung cancer early? Similar to mammograms for breast cancer screening and colonoscopies for colon cancer screening, we now have CT scans of the chest for lung cancer screening. Lung cancer screenings are recommended for people in a designated age range and who currently smoke or have recently quit and have smoked for a long time before that. Maybe about a pack a day on average for a certain number of years. People should also be overall healthy enough to have treatment if a cancer is found.
And most people don't know that Medicare, Virginia, Medicaid and most private insurance companies cover lung cancer screening yearly with no out-of-pocket cost if you meet the screening criteria. So a CT for lung cancer screening is really easy. There are no needles, there's no dye or contrast. The CT machine is like a big donut. You lay on the table and it moves through the donut and back out, and just a few seconds later, the scan is done. Most people don't even have to take off their shirt and you get to eat and drink like normal before the CT. Some people are nervous about getting screened because they're afraid we might find something or they feel like they did this to themselves because of their smoking. But at UVA Health, our job is to take excellent care of you and to help you feel comfortable at every step of the screening process.
If you still smoke, we can help you quit, cut down or just mentally get ready to do it. Lung cancer screening is one CT of the chest every year for as long as you're eligible. If you're interested in learning about lung cancer screening, you can talk to your healthcare provider to see if you're eligible or you can visit our website at uvahealth.com/lungcancerscreening.