OSF achieved outstanding enrollment in a groundbreaking lung cancer early detection trial, securing its position as the second site in the world to be chosen to provide a commercial lung cancer screening test.

The presence of lung cancer is detected by evaluating patterns of DNA fragments in the patient’s blood. In an independent validation, it was shown to have 80% sensitivity in a screening population, including detection of the earliest stages of the disease. The test also demonstrated a negative predictive value (NPV) of 99.7 percent for determining if lung cancer would be discovered by low-dose CT scans.

Lung cancer is the number one cause of cancer death globally and in the United States where it accounts for 25 percent of all cancer deaths–just as many deaths as the other four cancers for which screening is recommended combined (colon, prostate, breast and cervical cancer). Screening rates for those other cancers are in the 60 to 70 percent range, but lung cancer screening with low-dose CT scans is received by only approximately six percent of screen-eligible adults in the U.S. annually. This means that 14.1 million Americans who should be getting screened every year for lung cancer are not doing so. Detecting cancer early can improve outcomes. The low rate of lung screening is an important reason why the disease’s five-year survival rate in the U.S. is only 23 percent.

The work OSF Healthcare has been doing in this area has been identified and announced by the Whitehouse and the Biden Cancer Moonshot as an important new actions to strengthen preventive cancer care and expand accessibility of cancer Screenings. Read more here