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Adam Rothman
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P2.11 - Screening and Early Detection (ID 178)
- Event: WCLC 2019
- Type: Poster Viewing in the Exhibit Hall
- Track: Screening and Early Detection
- Presentations: 1
- Now Available
- Moderators:
- Coordinates: 9/09/2019, 10:15 - 18:15, Exhibit Hall
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P2.11-03 - Implementing Physician Education to Increase Lung Cancer Screening Compliance (Now Available) (ID 611)
10:15 - 18:15 | Author(s): Adam Rothman
- Abstract
Background
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. The USPSTF recommends annual low-dose CT chest (LDCT) for lung cancer screening in adults who meet the appropriate criteria: age 55-80, current smokers or former smokers who quit within 15years, with a 30 pack-year smoking history. Even with these recommendations, screening rates in these patients remain low. We created a study to assess compliance in an outpatient Internal Medicine clinic to assess the barriers for obtaining LDCT. We hypothesized that by providing an educational program, overall compliance would increase.
Method
The study was divided in two arms: a pre-intervention arm and a post-intervention assessment. Initially, 35 physicians completed a questionnaire on their attitudes to LDCT screening and their reasons for not screening high risk patients. We created a lung cancer screening education program, which consisted of lectures provided to physicians. Following the lectures, consecutive patient visits were reviewed to assess compliance with screening.
Result
In the first arm, 678 visits were reviewed. 115 patients met USPSTF criteria of whom 26% underwent screening. 29/546 (5%) underwent LDCT without meeting criteria. The most common reasons for not ordering LDCT scans in patients meeting criteria included: poor knowledge of criteria (22%), failure to determine if patients qualified (13%), and patient refusal (8%). Following the education, 208/955 patients reviewed met USPSTF criteria, of which 78% underwent LDCT and 27/738 (3.6%) who did not meet criteria were screened for lung cancer. Our study showed that after education, physicians were ten times more likely to screen patients for lung cancer (Odds ratio 9.98, 95% CI 5.87-16.94, p<0.0001).
Conclusion
We confirmed there was a suboptimal adherence to established LDCT lung cancer screening guidelines, mainly due to unfamiliarity with the screening criteria. By providing educational lectures, compliance improved significantly. We concluded that educating physicians about lung cancer screening guidelines can effectively increase LDCT screening tenfold, and therefore benefit patients at high risk for developing lung cancer.
