62,110 lung cancer deaths could be prevented among screening-eligible individuals with 100 percent screening uptake
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 26, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Less than 20 percent of screening-eligible individuals undergo lung cancer screening (LCS), according to a research letter published online Nov. 19 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Priti Bandi, Ph.D., from the American Cancer Society in Atlanta, and colleagues used data from the 2024 National Health Interview Survey to estimate the national prevalence of up-to-date LCS, as well as deaths prevented and life-years gained at current and 100 percent screening uptake.
Overall, 31.2 percent of those in the analytic sample were eligible for screening, translating to 12.76 million individuals. The researchers found that 18.7 percent of screening-eligible individuals reported up-to-date LCS, with lower prevalence in those younger than 60 years versus 60 years or older and higher prevalence for those with increasing comorbidities. One hundred percent screening uptake was projected to prevent 62,110 lung cancer deaths over five years among screening-eligible individuals and to gain 872,270 life-years. An estimated 24 percent of these deaths would be prevented and 22 percent of life-years would be gained with current up-to-date LCS uptake. For each additional 1,000 screening-eligible individuals screened, those with one, two, and three or more comorbidities would gain similar life-years (65.3, 61.6, and 64.1 years), while prevented deaths would increase (4.1, 4.3, and 5.6 deaths). An estimated 29,690 additional deaths would be prevented and 482,410 additional life-years would be gained if screening-ineligible ever-smoking individuals had 100 percent screening uptake.
“It”s disappointing that lung cancer screening uptake remains this low,” Bandi said in a statement. “More sobering is that this low uptake is translating into a real missed opportunity as three times more lung cancer deaths could be prevented (or lives saved) if everyone eligible were screened.”
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