Screen capture.

We know that low-dose CT screening for lung cancer in high risk populations can decrease risk of lung cancer mortality. This study is here to tell you it can even decrease risk of developing brain metastases. That’s not the case across all 53,452 enrollees in the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), of course. Rather here is a secondary analysis of the 1501 enrollees who were eventually diagnosed with lung cancer upon low-dose CT screening (n=622) or otherwise (n=880). Incidence of brain mets at 3 years in the screening-diagnosed cohort was nearly halved (6.5%) compared to in the non-screening-diagnosed cohort (11.9%). The hypothesis is that screen-detected cancers, even when technically the same stage, may represent a particularly indolent biology. | Su, J Thorac Oncol 2021