New National Cancer Institute Study Demonstrates Life-Saving Opportunities

The United Steelworkers (USW) today issued an urgent call for a strategy meeting about occupational lung cancer medical screening. Last week, the National Cancer Institute released the results of a 10 year national study involving over 53,000 people that demonstrated that annual medical screening with a low dose helical chest CT scan lowered mortality due to lung cancer by 20%. 

“We are now presented with an enormous opportunity to save workers from dying from lung cancer,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard. “Millions of workers have been exposed to asbestos, silica, chromium, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, nickel and combustion products – and all of these exposures are firmly established as causes of human lung cancer.”

Work-related lung cancer claims 10,000 to 20,000 workers annually and is the leading occupational cancer in the U.S. The landmark study is the first ever to prove that a screening method now exists that detects lung cancer at an early stage, one that permits early treatment and cure. The results were so convincing that the NCI halted the study early in order to inform participants and the general public about the effectiveness of applying low dose chest CT scans for the detection and treatment of lung cancer ... more