Primary Care Provider-Delivered Smoking Cessation Interventions and Smoking Cessation Among Participants in the National Lung Screening Trial.

IMPORTANCE: The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) found a reduction in lung cancer mortality among participants screened with low-dose computed tomography vs chest radiography. In February 2015, Medicare announced its decision to cover annual lung screening for patients with a significant smoking history. These guidelines promote smoking cessation treatment as an adjunct to screening, but the frequency and effectiveness of clinician-delivered smoking cessation interventions delivered after lung screening are unknown. OBJECTIVE: To determine the association between the reported clinician-delivered 5As (ask, advise, assess, assist [talk about quitting or recommend stop-smoking medications or recommend counseling], and arrange follow-up) after lung screening and smoking behavior changes. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: A matched case-control study (cases were quitters and controls were continued smokers) of 3336 NLST participants who were smokers at enrollment examined participants' rates and patterns of 5A delivery after a lung screen and reported smoking cessation behaviors. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: Prevalence of the clinician-delivered 5As and associated smoking cessation after lung screening. RESULTS: Delivery of the 5As 1 year after screening were as follows: ask, 77.2%; advise, 75.6%; assess, 63.4%; assist, 56.4%; and arrange follow-up, 10.4%. Receipt of ask, advise, and assess was not significantly associated with quitting in multivariate models that adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics, medical history, screening results, nicotine dependence, and motivation to quit. Assist was associated with a 40% increase in the odds of quitting (odds ratio, 1.40; 95% CI, 1.21-1.63), and arrange was associated with a 46% increase in the odds of quitting (odds ratio, 1.46; 95% CI, 1.19-1.79). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: Assist and arrange follow-up delivered by primary care providers to smokers who were participating in the NLST were associated with increased quitting; less intensive interventions (ask, advise, and assess) were not. However, rates of assist and arrange follow-up were relatively low. Our findings confirm the need for and benefit of clinicians taking more active intervention steps in helping patients who undergo screening to quit smoking.

Association of Coronary Artery Calcification and Mortality in the National Lung Screening Trial: A Comparison of Three Scoring Methods.

PURPOSE: To evaluate three coronary artery calcification (CAC) scoring methods to assess risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) death and all-cause mortality in National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) participants across levels of CAC scores. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The NLST was approved by the institutional review board at each participating institution, and informed consent was obtained from all participants. Image review was HIPAA compliant. Five cardiothoracic radiologists evaluated 1575 low-dose computed tomographic (CT) scans from three groups: 210 CHD deaths, 315 deaths not from CHD, and 1050 participants who were alive at conclusion of the trial. Radiologists used three scoring methods: overall visual assessment, segmented vessel-specific scoring, and Agatston scoring. Weighted Cox proportional hazards models were fit to evaluate the association between scoring methods and outcomes. RESULTS: In multivariate analysis of time to CHD death, Agatston scores of 1-100, 101-1000, and greater than 1000 (reference category 0) were associated with hazard ratios of 1.27 (95% confidence interval: 0.69, 2.53), 3.57 (95% confidence interval: 2.14, 7.48), and 6.63 (95% confidence interval: 3.57, 14.97), respectively; hazard ratios for summed segmented vessel-specific scores of 1-5, 6-11, and 12-30 (reference category 0) were 1.72 (95% confidence interval: 1.05, 3.34), 5.11 (95% confidence interval: 2.92, 10.94), and 6.10 (95% confidence interval: 3.19, 14.05), respectively; and hazard ratios for overall visual assessment of mild, moderate, or heavy (reference category none) were 2.09 (95% confidence interval: 1.30, 4.16), 3.86 (95% confidence interval: 2.02, 8.20), and 6.95 (95% confidence interval: 3.73, 15.67), respectively. CONCLUSION: By using low-dose CT performed for lung cancer screening in older, heavy smokers, a simple visual assessment of CAC can be generated for risk assessment of CHD death and all-cause mortality, which is comparable to Agatston scoring and strongly associated with outcome.

Results of the two incidence screenings in the National Lung Screening Trial.

BACKGROUND: The National Lung Screening Trial was conducted to determine whether three annual screenings (rounds T0, T1, and T2) with low-dose helical computed tomography (CT), as compared with chest radiography, could reduce mortality from lung cancer. We present detailed findings from the first two incidence screenings (rounds T1 and T2). METHODS: We evaluated the rate of adherence of the participants to the screening protocol, the results of screening and downstream diagnostic tests, features of the lung-cancer cases, and first-line treatments, and we estimated the performance characteristics of both screening methods. RESULTS: At the T1 and T2 rounds, positive screening results were observed in 27.9% and 16.8% of participants in the low-dose CT group and in 6.2% and 5.0% of participants in the radiography group, respectively. In the low-dose CT group, the sensitivity was 94.4%, the specificity was 72.6%, the positive predictive value was 2.4%, and the negative predictive value was 99.9% at T1; at T2, the positive predictive value increased to 5.2%. In the radiography group, the sensitivity was 59.6%, the specificity was 94.1%, the positive predictive value was 4.4%, and the negative predictive value was 99.8% at T1; both the sensitivity and the positive predictive value increased at T2. Among lung cancers of known stage, 87 (47.5%) were stage IA and 57 (31.1%) were stage III or IV in the low-dose CT group at T1; in the radiography group, 31 (23.5%) were stage IA and 78 (59.1%) were stage III or IV at T1. These differences in stage distribution between groups persisted at T2. CONCLUSIONS: Low-dose CT was more sensitive in detecting early-stage lung cancers, but its measured positive predictive value was lower than that of radiography. As compared with radiography, the two annual incidence screenings with low-dose CT resulted in a decrease in the number of advanced-stage cancers diagnosed and an increase in the number of early-stage lung cancers diagnosed. (Funded by the National Cancer Institute; NLST ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00047385.).