Not the only one left. Steven Porter is his family's
historian.
Tracing his roots on genealogy websites,
Porter says there's no history of cancer in his family,
but as a former smoker,
his doctor advised him to get screened in 2022.
I went and that's when they found the.
Solid nodule. They took enough of it during the biopsy
that they knew they had it all.
Porter knows he's lucky, and he's in the minority.
Only 6% of all Americans eligible for lung cancer screening
with a low dose CT scan actually get it done.
But now there's a new program to detect tiny lung
spots or nodules that might otherwise go undetected.
Ohio State researchers and clinicians have created a system to
evaluate all CT scans.
Not just those of lung cancer patients,
if they've had a heart attack,
if they've had a motor vehicle or accident,
if they've had a pneumonia and they undergo a CT
scan.
The team uses automated natural language processing tools,
artificial intelligence, to evaluate written radiology reports.
If there is a radiologist that has reported a lung
nodule of a certain size,
these can be flagged and followed up.
Doctor Pannu says when nodules are detected unexpectedly,
the patient's CT scan is further evaluated so they won't
fall through the cracks.
Steven Porter's screening was scheduled,
but either way, he knows the importance of catching the
cancer early.
I feel fine. I wouldn't have went.
And you know, next year may have been too late.
I'm Marty Salt reporting.