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The National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) showed that screening high-risk people with low-dose computed tomography (CT) vs. radiography lowered lung cancer–related mortality during 6 years of follow-up (1.33% vs. 1.67%; NEJM JW Gen Med Jul 14 2011). However, whether this finding applies to older people is unclear. In this secondary analysis, researchers reexamined NLST data by age: 19,612 younger participants (age range, 55–64) versus 7110 older participants (age range, 65–74).
Older participants, compared with younger participants, had a significantly higher incidence of screen-detected lung cancer (3.9% vs. 1.9%), a higher false-positive rate (28% vs. 22%), and a higher incidence of major complications from invasive procedures (3.4% vs. 1.9…