Abstract
Objective : We studied mass-screening sputum cytology results in detecting squamous-cell lung cancer.
Study Design : Subjects were 169,840 persons mass-screened for squamous-cell lung cancer using sputum cytology in the 19 years from 1987 to 2005.
Results : Cancer cases thus detected from 1987 to 1995 decreased from 183.0 to 146.2 per 100,000 persons from 1996 to 2005 among the total of 270 (162.6 per 100,000) found. No clear differences were seen between 1987-1995 and 1996-2005 in the incidence of central and peripheral sites (p=0.70, χ2 test).
Conclusions : While mass-screening sputum cytology remains useful in detecting early squamous-cell lung cancer, screening could be made more effective by narrowing subjects down to high-risk groups and increasing the number of those screened.
