The radiologist's role in lung cancer screening

Annemiek Snoeckx; Caro Franck; Mario Silva; Mathias Prokop; Cornelia Schaefer-Prokop; Marie-Pierre Revel

doi:10.21037/tlcr-20-924

The radiologist's role in lung cancer screening

Transl Lung Cancer Res. 2021 May;10(5):2356-2367. doi: 10.21037/tlcr-20-924.

Authors

Annemiek Snoeckx¹, Caro Franck¹, Mario Silva², Mathias Prokop³, Cornelia Schaefer-Prokop⁴, Marie-Pierre Revel⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Antwerp University Hospital and University of Antwerp, Edegem, Belgium.
² Scienze Radiologiche, Department of Medicine and Surgery (DiMeC), University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
³ Department of Medical Imaging, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
⁴ Department of Radiology, Meander Medical Center, Amersfoort, The Netherlands.
⁵ Department of Radiology, Cochin Hospital, APHP Centre, Université de Paris, Paris, France.

Abstract

Lung cancer is still the deadliest cancer in men and women worldwide. This high mortality is related to diagnosis in advanced stages, when curative treatment is no longer an option. Large randomized controlled trials have shown that lung cancer screening (LCS) with low-dose computed tomography (CT) can detect lung cancers at earlier stages and reduce lung cancer-specific mortality. The recent publication of the significant reduction of cancer-related mortality by 26% in the Dutch-Belgian NELSON LCS trial has increased the likelihood that implementation of LCS in Europe will move forward. Radiologists are important stakeholders in numerous aspects of the LCS pathway. Their role goes beyond nodule detection and nodule management. Being part of a multidisciplinary team, radiologists are key players in numerous aspects of implementation of a high quality LCS program. In this non-systematic review we discuss the multifaceted role of radiologists in LCS.

Keywords: Lung cancer screening; artificial intelligence (AI); imaging; radiologist; radiology.

Publication types

Review