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Multicenter Study
. 2020 Sep;160(3):824-831.e4.
doi: 10.1016/j.jtcvs.2019.10.145. Epub 2019 Nov 14.

Results of low-dose computed tomography as a regular health examination among Chinese hospital employees

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Free article
Multicenter Study

Results of low-dose computed tomography as a regular health examination among Chinese hospital employees

Yang Zhang et al. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2020 Sep.
Free article

Abstract

Objective: Lung cancer is traditionally more prevalent in the elderly patients, men, and smokers. However, as low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) is increasingly popular, we hypothesized the disease spectrum might change.

Methods: LDCT was performed as a part of regular health examinations in 8392 of 15,686 employees from 6 hospitals in different regions of China in 2012 to 2018. Clinicopathologic characteristics, including age, sex, smoking status, radiologic features, tumor histology, and pathologic stage, were retrospectively analyzed.

Results: LDCT incidentally detected lung cancer (pathologically confirmed) in a total of 179 (2.1%) hospital employees. The lung cancer detection rate was significantly greater in female than male (2.5% vs 1.3%, P = .001) patients. There was also a greater detection rate among nonsmokers than smokers, although statistical significance was not reached (2.2% vs 1.4%, P = .092). The lung cancer detection rate was 1.0% in the "age ≤40 years" group, 2.6% in the "40 < age ≤55 years" group, and 2.9% in the "age >55 years" group (P < .001). Among the hospital employees with lung cancer, 171 (95.5%) presented as ground-glass opacity, 177 (98.9%) were lung adenocarcinoma, 170 (95.0%) were early stage 0/IA, and 177 (98.9%) received curative surgical resection as the initial treatment. After a median follow-up of 38 months, no disease recurrence or death was observed among these patients.

Conclusions: LDCT detected lung cancer in a significant proportion of young, female, and nonsmoking employees. The vast majority of these lung cancers were early stage, with extremely good prognosis.

Keywords: early-stage; female; low-dose computed tomography; lung cancer; nonsmokers; young.

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