Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/373102
Fall 2014 Healthy Directions 10 D orothy Davis says a bout of back pain may have saved her life. Back pain eventually led the 67-year-old Freehold woman to see Jeffrey Silberberg, MD, a board-certified hematologist/oncologist on staff at CentraState Medical Center. Dorothy, who exercises four days a week and hikes Arcadia National Park in Maine each summer, fell down the stairs in August 2013. However, it was another month before she started experiencing considerable back pain. Her doctor found that she had a compression fracture in her spine, but advised her to see an oncologist to determine whether the fracture was related to more extensive disease, such as cancer. Dr. Silberberg says initial tests did not link her back problem to any other disease process. However, after learning Dorothy was a long-time smoker, he recommended that she participate in the lung cancer screening program, part of the Comprehensive LungCare Program at CentraState. The screening program offers free, low-dose computed tomography (CT) imaging scans for people considered at high risk for developing lung cancer. In Dorothy's case, the scan found a small nodule on her lung that was later determined to be early-stage lung cancer. At the time, Dorothy didn't have a persistent cough or any symptoms of lung cancer—the leading cause of cancer death among men and women in the United States each year. "If I didn't have that CT scan, I firmly believe that by the time my cancer would have been found, and I was having symptoms, my chances of survival would have been low," says Dorothy, a grandmother of six and a retired engineer from AT&T Inc. "The screening saved my life. It really did." THE PATH TO SCREENING The screening program, run in conjunction with Freehold Radiology Group since June 2013, offers free, state-of-the-art, 64-slice CT scans to patients who: • Are current or former smokers, ages 55 to 74. Dorothy Davis is all smiles after her successful treatment for lung cancer at CentraState. A Lung Cancer Screening Success Story