Chest X-rays and AI identify non-smokers at risk of lung cancer

Approximately 10-20 per cent of lung cancers occur in so-called ‘never-smokers’, who are people who have never smoked cigarettes or smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime.

Currently, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) does not recommend screening for individuals who have never smoked or who have smoked very little, but the incidence of lung cancer among never-smokers is increasing. When discovered, these cancers tend to be more advanced than those found in smokers.

“Current Medicare and USPSTF guidelines recommend lung cancer screening CT only for individuals with a substantial smoking history,” said the study’s lead author, Anika S. Walia, B.A., a medical student at Boston University School of Medicine and researcher at the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center (CIRC) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School in Boston. “However, lung cancer is increasingly common in never-smokers and often presents at an advanced stage.”

One reason federal guidelines exclude never-smokers from screening recommendations is because it is difficult to predict lung cancer risk in this population. Existing lung cancer risk scores require information that is not readily available for most individuals, such as family history of lung cancer, pulmonary function testing or serum biomarkers.