Lung cancer screening: a new era.

Screening is always an issue that generates a great deal of emotion, as recently seen with the controversies surrounding mammography and prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing. The role of screening is to detect cancers early in asymptomatic individuals, with a goal of facilitating timely intervention to decrease morbidity and mortality. The key words/concepts in the foregoing sentence are “asymptomatic,” “intervention,” and “decreasing morbidity and mortality.”