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November 2015

Medicare Approves Coverage for Lung Cancer Screening: The Case for Symptomatic Screening

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Nebraska, Omaha
  • 2Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
JAMA Oncol. 2015;1(8):1027-1028. doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2015.2165

On February 5, 2015, Medicare announced coverage for annual low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) scans for a portion of its nearly 50 million constituents. Similar to the patients included in the 2011 National Lung Screening Trial (NLST),1 Medicare criteria for screening eligibility includes patients 55 to 77 years of age, at least 30 pack-year smoking history, either currently smoking or having quit within the past 15 years, and asymptomatic of lung disease.

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