Dialogues

Jan 30, 2025, 06:40

ASCO24 Updates: Matthew Paul Smeltzer on Addressing Lung Cancer Screening Disparities

The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting is one of the largest and most prestigious conferences in the field of oncology. This year, the meeting took place from May 31 to June 4 in Chicago, Illinois. The event gathers oncologists, researchers, and healthcare professionals from around the world to discuss the latest advancements in cancer research, treatment, and patient care. Keynote sessions, research presentations, and panel discussions are typically part of the agenda, providing attendees with valuable insights into emerging trends and innovations in oncology.

Last year, OncoDaily was at ASCO 2024 for the first time covering the meeting on-site. We had the pleasure of interviewing researchers who summarized the highlights of their work.

In this video, Matthew Paul Smeltzer, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Memphis, shared insights on ‘Smoking history requirement and lung cancer (LC) screening (LCS) eligibility disparities.‘

Hi, I’m Matt Smeltzer, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Memphis. Our work, which we’re presenting here at ASCO this week, looks at lung cancer screening criteria.

We know that the current USPSTF-21 screening criteria do not fully address the race- and sex-based disparities in screening that have been noted in many studies. To ensure that everyone at high risk is screened equitably, we need to go beyond these criteria. We examined a cohort in the mid-South United States called Deluge.

Deluge is located in the Mississippi Delta and spans portions of five states. It includes a large cohort of over 26,000 individuals with non-screening-detected pulmonary nodules. We’re using that data to evaluate new screening criteria and how they might impact race- and sex-based disparities.

We found that the new criteria, which recommend using 20 years of smoking history regardless of pack-years, instead of the current 20 pack-years as the criteria, do indeed address these disparities. This was published by Dr. Jeff Yang and Dr. Alex Potter in JCO this year. We also went a step further by examining the American Cancer Society criteria, which removes the quit-duration requirement. We believe that the new screening criteria should be expanded to both reduce disparities and increase the number of people eligible for screening.

However, that won’t be the end of the story. There are still two major gaps in early detection. One is getting the eligibility criteria for screening correct, and the other is improving the implementation of screening. We know that we have not implemented screening programs well enough to capture a large proportion of people who are at high risk.

Addressing these gaps will require a multi-faceted approach. I hope you’ll have a chance to read more about this work soon. Thank you.

More videos and content from ASCO 2024 on OncoDaily.