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OFFERING LOW-DOSE CT SCREENING SCANS IN CONJUNCTION WITH A ROBUST LUNG CANCER MANAGEMENT PROGRAM, ORANGE REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER HELPS LOCAL PATIENTS IMPROVE THEIR ODDS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CANCERS OF THE LUNGS. W I T H A L M O S T 2 5 0 , 0 0 0 new cases and leading to 150,000 deaths in the United States each year, lung cancer is more fatal than breast, colon and prostate cancers combined. When identified in the early stages, however, lung cancers can be surgically resected and the disease is often curable. In fact, patients whose lung cancer is identified and treated in stage 1 have a 70 percent chance of living five years, while patients diagnosed in the later stages have five-year survival rates that approach 9 percent. Yet, because lung cancer causes few early symptoms, many patients are not identified or treated until their disease has advanced to the later stages. "The problem with lung cancer is that it is often identified too late, so patients succumb to their disease," says Cleveland Lewis Jr., MD, Medical Director of the Lung Cancer Disease Management team at Orange Regional. " S c re en i n g a l lo w s phy sic i a n s t o potentially start making a difference in the number of people who die from lung cancer." Tumor surveillance resulting in early detection and treatment has proven valu- able for other cancers, such as cervical cancer, which have decreased in inci- dence and fatality since early screening became the norm. However, lung cancer has proven problematic because early screening techniques did not show an increase in lives saved. Sputum cytology and chest X-rays, for instance, have not demonstrated a survival benefit. In 2011, however, The New England Journal of Medicine published the details of a randomized trial, known as the National Innovations in Lung Cancer Screenings and Treatment at Orange Regional Medical Center By Jennifer Webster COV ER FE AT UR E Cleveland Lewis Jr., MD, Medical Director of the Lung Cancer Disease Management team at Orange Regional Medical Center, performs a thoracotomy. 6 | Mid Hudson MD NEWS ■ M D N E W S . CO M