Importance of Lung Screening in New Albany, IN

At Baptist Health, we we take pride in providing the cutting edge technology, and we have made a lot of efforts to diagnose lung cancer early on. We do realize that lung cancer incidence is pretty high in our community, and that's why our goal is to get lung nodule detected early on so we can cure them sooner. Diagnosis, it starts with a CT scan of the chest. It's a low dose CT scan, and it's noninvasive imaging.

Anyone who is between the ages of fifty and eighty years of age, who has a twenty year pack smoking year history qualifies for a low dose CT scan.

When patient get a CT scan of the chest, as you're laying on the table, the table is sliding into the machine, which we are taking multiple slices. Each slice is just like a bread slice, and I'm scanning it through for any abnormality. And it gives us so much information that's valuable that we can look later on and discuss with the patient if there's any concerning findings or not.

These screenings take two to three minutes to go through the machine. There's no prep for it. It will take you longer to get registered, and the results will be in your chart in two to three days, and you can discuss that with your primary care doctor. Medicare and Medicaid and most insurances do cover the screening.

I tell patients if we find lung cancer at early stage, which would be stage one, the chance of cure with treatment gets close to ninety percent that they were still alive in five years.