Nasser Hanna, M.D., can provide expertise on the new guidelines for lung cancer screening recently issued by the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force. The USPSTF recommends yearly low-dose CT screening for those who are at high risk of developing lung cancer because of their smoking history. The recommendation lowers the age when screening should start from 55 to 50, and it reduces the smoking history from 30 years to 20 years. The impact? The changes in the recommendations have the potential to find lung cancer in more people early enough to cure it.
Dr. Hanna points out that the recommendation has a major financial implication in reimbursement. Under the Affordable Care Act, private insurers must cover services without patient cost-sharing that receive an “A” or “B” recommendation from the USPSTF. This new recommendation received a “B” rating.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. According to the National Cancer Institute, there were 228,820 new cases of lung cancer in the U.S. in 2020, with 135,720 deaths caused by the disease.
Dr. Hanna, a hematologist/oncologist specializing in thoracic oncology at the Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center, leads several clinical trials for first-line treatments and for metastatic disease. He offers expertise in the epidemiology of lung cancer in smokers and non-smokers, inflammation and lung cancer, treatment strategies, and the future of lung cancer therapies.
He is the Tom and Julie Wood Family Foundation Professor of Lung Cancer Clinical Research and professor of medicine at Indiana University School of Medicine.
