Dr. Vokes on Screening, Epidemiology, and Smoking in Lung Cancer
Everett E. Vokes, MD, chair, Department of Medicine, investigator of head and neck and lung cancer, University of Chicago, discusses a plenary session that covered prevention and screening at the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer.
Everett E. Vokes, MD, Giant of Cancer Care: Head and Neck Cancer, chair, Department of Medicine, investigator of head and neck and lung cancer, University of Chicago, discusses a plenary session that covered prevention and screening at the 16th World Conference on Lung Cancer.
One talk, delivered by Christine Berg, MD, from Johns Hopkins University, emphasized the importance of screening. Berg provided an update on data that have shown that screening can reduce mortality by 20% among heavy smokers.
In the same session, David Christiani, MD, MPH, from the Harvard School of Public Health, gave a talk on the epidemiology of smoking. Though the population of smokers has decreased from about 50% to 17%, there are increasing socioeconomic concerns, Vokes says.
Finally, Graham Warren, MD, PhD, from the Medical University of South Carolina, presented on the clinical, biologic and behavioral considerations of smoking cessation among patients diagnosed with lung cancer. The question of whether or not it is important for patients to stop smoking was answered, Vokes says. There is suggestive evidence that continued smoking decreases the potential of curative therapy. Treatment should be pursued without further exposure to tobacco.
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