[Lung cancer screening and management of small pulmonary nodules]

Abstract

Worldwide lung cancer is the leading cause of death from cancer. Most lung cancers are diagnosed at an advanced stage, so survival after lung cancer is generally poor. Diagnosis of lung cancer at earlier stages may be associated with an increased survival rate. This indicates that the implementation of lung cancer screening programs at the population level by means of low dose computed tomography might helpful to improve the outcome and mortality of lung cancer patients. By means of rapid advances in imaging technologies over the last decades it became possible to detect small lung nodules as small as a couple of millimeters. This recent developments require management algorithms to guide the clinical management of suspicious and indeterminate lung nodules found in computer tomography during lung cancer screening or by incidental finding.This review will focus on both, the recent advances in lung cancer screening and the guidelines for the management of small pulmonary nodules.