Lung Cancer Screening: A Decade of Lessons Learned with Mary Pasquinelli, DNP

Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related death worldwide, accounting for nearly 2 million deaths annually, which is more than those caused by breast, colorectal, and cervical cancers combined. Despite this burden, only 15% of patients survive 5 years post-diagnosis, largely due to late-stage detection in the majority of cases. It has been more than a decade since lung cancer screening guidelines via low-dose CT, based on the USPSTF’s B recommendations, have been put into place.

In the latest episode of Lungcast, host Albert Rizzo, MD, chief medical officer of the American Lung Association (ALA), discussed this topic on the monthly respiratory health podcast series. Rizzo spoke with Mary Pasquinelli, DNP, a nurse practitioner in the Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care, Sleep, and Allergy at University of Illinois Health. She also serves as the director of the Lung Screening Program at the University of Illinois Chicago.

In this episode of Lungcast, Rizzo and Pasquinelli discussed the guidelines’ ambitions and obstacles. They also discussed pulmonary nodule management, which, while a lifesaving procedure for at-risk individuals, has seen slower than expected the uptake of screening on a population-level, although this is increasing. Pasquinelli also outlined a number of efforts and tools to increase screening rates.

“Screening truly saves lives, and we have all these efforts underway to really enhance screening through refined criteria, risk stratification, integration of emerging tools like biomarkers and AI such as Sybil, which holds really great, great promise for improving early detection and outcomes. So, it's just so important that we remember that anybody with lungs can get lung cancer. And thankfully, the narrative around lung cancer is changing. There's more awareness, there's more innovation, and more, most importantly, there's more hope,” Pasquinelli stressed.

Lungcast is a monthly respiratory news podcast series hosted by Albert Rizzo, MD, chief medical officer of the ALA, and produced by HCPLive.

Subscribe to Lungcast on Spotify here, or listen to the episode below.