Lung Cancer Screening Endorsed by Pulmonary and Primary Care Providers

HealthDay News — Primary care clinicians and pulmonologists endorse lung cancer screening, but there are limitations in their knowledge of screening components, according to a study published online in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

Matthew Triplette, MD, MPH, from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues conducted an electronic survey of primary care and pulmonary providers to examine knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, barriers, and facilitators related to lung cancer screening. There were 196 participants; 80% of them were primary care clinicians, 19% were pulmonologists, and 1% were others.

The researchers found that 74% of participants endorsed the effectiveness of lung cancer screening; performance was suboptimal on knowledge-based assessments of screening eligibility, documentation, and nodule management. Key barriers included inadequate time and staffing (both 36%), and not addressing screening because patients had too many other illnesses (38%). Decision aids, used at the point-of-referral, were important clinical facilitators of LCS (51%) and facilitators of provider knowledge (59%). Several differences were seen by provider specialty, including primary care clinicians more often reporting time constraints and their patients having too many other illnesses to address screening.

“Providers endorsed the benefits of lung cancer screening, but there are limitations in provider knowledge of key screening components,” the authors write.

References

Triplette M, Kross EK, Mann BA, et al. An assessment of primary care and pulmonary provider perspectives on lung cancer screening [published online September 21, 2017]. Ann Am Thorac Soc. doi:10.1513/AnnalsATS.201705-392OC