Volume Growth as Criteria for Malignancy in CT Lung Cancer Screening

In a lead editorial accompanying interim results from the NELSON lung cancer screening trial, authors James L. Mulshine, M.D.  (left) and David M. Jablons, M.D.  (right), discuss, in the December 3rd, 2009 New England Journal of Medicine, the diagnostic utility of volume growth as a tool for determining if lung nodules found on CT screening are malignant.

"The results suggest that the efficiency of the diagnostic workup for lung cancer can be improved by integrating the measurement of volume growth of lung nodules as an indicator of clinically significant lung cancer while limiting the need for additional costly or potentially harmful diagnostic procedures."