Hawaii will try to recruit 3,600 participants for a National Lung Screening Trial announced today by the National Cancer Institute, said Brysen Poulton of the Pacific Health Research Institute. Isle recruits needed
for cancer studyThe screening is part of a
nationwide study on lung cancerStar-Bulletin staff
The institute is seeking 50,000 current and former adult smokers across the nation for the largest lung cancer screening study ever conducted.
The goal is to determine if screening people with a spiral cat scan or chest X-ray before they have symptoms can reduce deaths from lung cancer.
No screening test is available now that has been proven to save lives, the cancer institute said.
"Lung cancer kills more people than cancers of the breast, prostate, colon and pancreas combined and will claim nearly 155,000 lives this year. Our hope is that this study will lead to saving lives," said John Gohagan, chief of the National Cancer Institute's Early Detection Research Group and co-director of the trial.
Two research networks will carry out the trial. One has been carrying out a lung screening study called the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial. The other is a network of researchers who conduct imaging studies, called the American College of Radiology Imaging Network.
The cancer institute also is collaborating with the American Cancer Society to organize grassroots recruitment efforts.
Gohagan said it is important because "there are an estimated 90 million current and former smokers in the United States at high risk for lung cancer, and death rates for this disease, unlike many other cancers, have not declined."
Participants will be randomly assigned in the study to receive either a chest X-ray or spiral CT once a year for three years and researchers will continue to contact them annually to monitor their health until 2009.
For more information about Hawaii's participation, call Poulton, the local recruiter, at 564-5717.