An AIIMS New Delhi doctor sat on the 23-member expert group, and eligible Indians can seek screening through the Indian Lung Screening Trial he leads.
New Delhi: Screening with low-dose computed tomography can reduce the risk of dying from lung cancer by 16 per cent among high-risk people and also lower the number of cases found at stage III or IV, a working group of the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has concluded in an assessment published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
The IARC panel of 23 clinicians and scientists from 17 countries, including Dr Abhishek Shankar of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, weighed the benefits and harms of lung cancer screening. The group found that the evidence applies chiefly to people aged 50 to 80 with a heavy smoking history, usually at least 20 to 30 pack-years. Former smokers covered by the studies had generally stopped within the preceding 10 to 15 years, and screening was mostly done once a year.
In India, current smokers aged 50 to 80 with at least 20 pack-years, and those who quit within the last 15 years, can approach the Indian Lung Screening Trial run by Dr Shankar at AIIMS, according to the report. He has invited eligible people to get in touch for screening under the trial.
Randomised trials formed the core of the evidence. In the US National Lung Screening Trial, people screened with low-dose CT had a 16 per cent lower relative risk of lung cancer death at seven years than those screened by chest X-ray, while the European NELSON trial recorded lower lung cancer mortality among screened men at 10 years. The group placed low-dose CT in Group A, meaning established evidence of benefit, and put chest X-rays, with or without sputum tests, in Group C because a mortality benefit could not be shown.
The review cautioned that the scan is not suitable for everyone. False-positive rates ranged from 1 per cent to 42 per cent depending on the protocol, and 5 per cent to 32 per cent of people with a false positive went on to at least one invasive procedure, with complications in 10 per cent to 22 per cent of those procedures. Between 3 per cent and 26 per cent of cancers picked up in high-risk trials could be overdiagnosis, the group estimated.
A screening programme needs more than scanners, the working group said. It must identify eligible people, assess risk, track nodules, deliver treatment and follow-up and support smoking cessation, backed by trained staff, quality assurance, adequate capacity and equitable access.
Source: ETHealthworld, The Economic Times, 28 September 2026
