What Happened At the Lung Cancer Screening Sites

A study published in 2015 by James Ostroff et al., described what happened at 93 lung

 cancer screening sites across the US. The main question investigated by this survey was

 whether these sites had any influence on follow up resource utilization among its clients.

 

Most sites reported that, at the initial visit, patients were routinely asked about their current

 smoking status (98.9%) and current smokers were advised to quit (91.4%). Fewer (57%)

 sites provided cessation counseling or referred  smokers to a quitline (60.2%) and even

 fewer (36.6%) routinely recommended cessation medications.    

   

DISAPPOINTING FOLLOW-UP FINDINGS

During follow-up screening visits, respondents reported less attention to smoking cessation

 advice and treatment. Lack of patient motivation and resistance to cessation advice and

 treatment, lack of staff training, and lack of reimbursement were the most frequently cited

 barriers for delivering smoking cessation treatment.

 

The study concluded by stating that greater attention to identifying and addressing barriers

 for tobacco treatment delivery is needed in order to maximize the potential benefit of

 integrating smoking cessation into lung cancer screening protocols.

http://ntr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2015/09/18/ntr.ntv177.abstract

 

Earlier in 2007, another lung cancer screening site reported these findings:

“Nicotine replacement therapy and free counseling were the cessation methods that were of

 most interest, and fear of  lung health problems was the most frequently endorsed

 motivation for quitting smoking. Regarding readiness to stop  smoking, approximately 20%

 were ready to stop in the next 30 days, 45% were ready to stop in the next 6 months,  while

 35% were not thinking of stopping.

 

At the follow-up, 7% of current smokers at baseline reported abstinence, and 4% of former

 smokers at baseline  reported having relapsed. The findings differed across the two samples

 when considering the readiness to quit  outcome. At the 1-month follow-up of the NLST

 sample, participants became more ready to stop smoking (p<.05).  Screening result did not

 moderate this finding.

 

In the LSS sample, among younger participants (<or=64), an abnormal screening result was

 significantly associated  with becoming more ready to stop smoking, whereas a normal

 result was associated with becoming less ready to stop  smoking (p=.02).”

CONCLUSIONS TO 2007 STUDY:

The report stated in conclusion that: “The current findings demonstrated the feasibility of

 enrolling lung screening  participants into a smoking-related research study, as well as the

 high level of interest in stopping smoking and in  smoking cessation interventions. These

 data indicate that lung cancer screening may serve as a teachable moment for  smoking

 cessation, and suggest that a smoking cessation trial within the context of lung cancer

 screening is feasible.”

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17196298

 

So in general, I at Beautiful Quitters would say that these screening sites could do better in

 capturing interest in  quitting. Much more work still needs to be done.

Please contact me at Averayugen@mail.com if you could use some personal phone coaching

 on a donations-only  basis.