Early Dosimetric and Diagnostic Results of the Canadian Association of Radiologists' Lung Cancer Screening Program Pilot
Abstract
Purpose
During the implementation of the pilot of the Canadian Association of Radiologists’ (CAR) Lung cancer screening program, our healthcare system had to adapt our existing practices and protocols. Our physicists decided to investigate the effect these changes had on our patient population, both in patient dose and in lung nodule detection rate.
Methods
The impact of the screening program on patient dose was evaluated using comparison between key patients. Patients of similar water equivalent diameters (WED) were identified and the doses of their screening studies were compared before and after protocol changes. The efficiency of the screening program was also evaluated by comparing the lung nodule detection rates pre-and post- protocol changes.
Results
The creation and implementation of low dose protocols resulted in a reduction of comparative patient dose between pre- and post- protocol changes. Evaluation of lung nodule detection is still ongoing, as a significant number of patients have not yet been scanned following the protocol changes at the time of writing.
Conclusion
Early results show a comparative reduction in patient dose while efficiency of lung nodule detection remains constant. This suggests the lung cancer screening program pilot was successfully implemented in our system and should be considered for other Canadian healthcare systems.