Meet lung cancer’s worst enemy: screenings

 

Also a fact: It doesn’t need to be.

That’s why St. Tammany Health System in 2015 launched its ACR-accredited low-dose CT scan screening program as part of our ongoing prevention and early detection efforts.

“It’s really pretty simple: Low-dose CT scans save lives,” said Megan Broussard, the low-dose CT program coordinator at St. Tammany Health System’s only-in-the-region Care Continuum Center of Excellence, as named by the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer. “If lung cancer is detected early, as a stage one disease, the five-year survival rate is between 68 and 92 percent. If it’s left until stage four, you go to a 10 percent five-year survival rate at best.”

Fortunately, Broussard said, low-dose CT scans are quick and painless.

“There are no needles, no dyes, no fasting,” she said. “You even keep your regular clothes on, and – for those concerned with small spaces – your head never even goes through the machine at any point during the procedure.”

Scroll down to learn more about this life-saving program. 

A low-dose CT scan produces a 3D X-ray picture of a patient’s lungs. That image is taken using a small dose of radiation that is more than that used in a chest X-ray but much lower than in other types of CT scans.

During the procedure, which takes fewer than 15 seconds, a patient lays horizontally on a sliding platform. A technologist then positions the patient, sliding them feet-first through the ring-shaped CT scanner until their chest is in proper alignment with the equipment. The tech then briefly leaves the room, presses a button and, just like that, the procedure is complete.

And, really, that’s it. 

The scans are then evaluated by St. Tammany Health System’s trained radiologists, who look for any abnormalities. Results are usually available within 24 to 48 hours.

In addition to being quick and easy, low-dose CT scans are also safe. In fact, St. Tammany Health System’s Paul D. Cordes Outpatient Pavilion in Covington, where its low-dose CT program is based, is the only facility in the New Orleans metro area designated a Care Continuum Center of Excellence by the GO2 Foundation for Lung Cancer, in recognition of STHS’s commitment to providing responsible, high-quality and safe screening practices.