Target Acquired: Lung Cancer

摘要

The U.S. Army is figuring out how to spend $20 million that Congress has given the Department of Defense (DOD) for peer-reviewed research on lung cancer. In a 2009 budget bill passed in late September, lawmakers added lung cancer to a list of cancers that DOD must study. The Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA), which helped push for the earmark, hopes the bill's emphasis on "early curable lung cancer" will support a search for biomarkers and standards for computed tomography (CT) lung scans to detect small tumors. These tests increase costs for follow-up procedures; it's not clear that the scans reduce mortality (Science, 2 May, p. 600). But LCA President Laurie Fenton Ambrose says that many patients are already getting lung CT scans and that standards are urgently needed.