The Community Health Center of Southeast Kansas (CHC/SEK) is helping individuals at a greater risk of lung cancer to identify lung cancer in its earliest stages through low-dose CT lung cancer screenings in its Fort Scott and Pittsburg locations.
With a physician’s order, individuals 50-80 years old who currently smoke, or formerly smoked one pack per day for 20 years or two packs per day for 10 years, and who have smoked within the last 15 years, can receive a noninvasive and inexpensive lung cancer screening.
“Low-dose CT lung cancer screenings are effective, noninvasive, and inexpensive,” says Kimberly Wass, RT, (R). “It only takes a few minutes, causes no discomfort, and exposes you to a small amount of radiation, the images obtained give us a detailed picture of the patient’s lungs and chest.”
CT scanners combine a series of X-ray images taken from different angles around your body and use computer processing to create cross-sectional images (slices) inside your body. CT scan images provide more-detailed information than plain X-rays do. The images can help diagnose lung cancer in its earliest and most treatable stages.
In the United States, lung cancer accounts for approximately one-fourth of cancer related deaths because many patients are diagnosed with advanced stages of the disease when treatment options are limited. According to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, tobacco use is still one of the leading causes of preventable death, disease, and disability in the state. Almost one in four (24.6%) Kansas adults (18 years and older) use tobacco and many chronic conditions related to tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke.
You can take a lung cancer risk quiz and determine your eligibility for screening. Take the quiz.
