Trends in the proportion of patients with lung cancer meeting screening criteria.

Trends in the Proportion of Patients With Lung CancerMeeting Screening Criteria Lung cancer screening using low-dose computed tomography is recommended for high-risk individuals by professional associations, including theUSPreventive ServicesTask Force (USPSTF).1The implicationsof theUSPSTFscreeningcriteriawere investigated inawell-definedpopulation retrospectively over 28 years to demonstrate trends in the proportion of patients with lung cancer meeting the criteria. Methods | The cohort contained all Olmsted County, Minnesota, residents older than 20 years from 1984 through 2011, comprisingapproximately 140 000people, ofwhom83%were non-Hispanic white and socioeconomically similar to the Midwestern US population.2 All pathologically confirmed incident cases of primary lung cancer were identified using the RochesterEpidemiologyProjectdatabase; theprojecthasmaintained a comprehensive medical records linkage system for more than 60 years based on hospital adaptation of the International Classification of Diseases and International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, codes.2,3 Patient character-