Screening Approach and Early Detection Of Lung Cancer In Non-Smoking Female

Abstract

The prevalence of lung cancer is generally dominant in men as cancer with the highest mortality rate. However, the mortality rate for lung cancer in women has increased, which placed lung cancer as the first deadliest cancer based on mortality rate followed by breast cancer. In Indonesia, lung cancer ranks third in the incidence of lung cancer in both gender and ranks first in the incidence in men. For women, lung cancer is not in the top 5 of the highest cancer’s incidence. There are several risk factors in women, such as passive smoking, exposure to pesticides, exposure to biomass, and others. Exposure to biomass includes exposure to wood smoke, mosquito coils, and lime dust. Therefore, early detection of those who have been exposed to the above risk factors is needed. Two components of cancer detection include early detection and screening. Early detection focuses on detecting symptomatic patients as early as possible, whereas screening consists of screening healthy individuals to identify those with cancer before symptoms appear. A global study by The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed a 20% reduction in mortality from lung cancer by screening using Low Dose CT-Scan (LDCT), thus making LDCT the modality of choice for screening lung cancer patients.