Millions more former smokers must be regularly screened for lung cancer, American Cancer Society says – do YOU need a check-up?

Nearly five million additional people are recommended to be screened for lung cancer.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) has expanded its guideline for annual lung cancer screening to include older adults who smoke or have smoked, regardless of how long ago they quit.

Now anyone between the ages of 50 and 80 with at least a 20-year smoking history (the equivalent of smoking a pack a day for 20 years) should be screened for lung cancer, regardless of how long ago they stopped smoking.

Previously, the ACS recommended annual lung cancer screening for adults ages 55 to 74 with a smoking history of at least 30 years, who still smoke or quit less than 15 years ago.

The history of the pack year is the number of years a person smoked multiplied by the number of packs he smoked per day. A pack contains 20 cigarettes.

A person would have a twenty-year pack history if he smoked two packs of cigarettes per day for ten years, or one pack of cigarettes per day for twenty years.

Dr. William Dahut, chief scientific officer of the American Cancer Society, said CNN: ‘I think the years of stopping were confusing for people.’

He said: ‘First of all, lung cancer is a disease of the elderly, so your risk basically starts to be greatest once you get into your 60s, which is probably around the time when people were no longer being screened.

“Over time, we’re now seeing that the risk persists for men and women in their 60s and older, and so that’s exactly the time when you need to be screening because that’s actually when their cancer risk is highest.” .’

It’s the first time in a decade that the ACS guidelines have been updated, and the organization estimates that the change will prevent 21 percent more lung deaths.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the US. It is detected using a low-dose computed tomography scan (CT scan).

One in six people will be diagnosed with lung cancer during their lifetime, and more than 127,000 lives are lost each year.

A recent report from the ACS shows that young women are more likely to suffer from lung cancer than men.

Men were almost twice as likely as women to develop the disease in the 1980s, due to higher rates of smoking and higher workplace exposure to substances such as asbestos.

But with declining cigarette use and safety regulations, the pattern has reversed, with young and middle-aged women now more likely to be diagnosed with the disease than men.

In 1992 there were about 65 new cases of lung cancer for every 100,000 people and by 2019 this had fallen to about 42.

Despite progress, an inequality is emerging between the sexes: lung cancer is diagnosed more often in women between the ages of 35 and 54 than in men in the same age group.

Cigarette smoking remains the leading cause of lung cancer, and although the overall number of smokers has fallen dramatically, women are slower to quit.

By gender, approximately 67,000 men die from lung cancer each year, compared to 59,910 women.

However, deaths from lung cancer have been on a downward trend since the 1980s as awareness of the health risks of cigarettes continues to increase.

About 20 percent of American adults smoked in 2005, research shows, but by 2021 that had dropped to 11.5 percent.

In some parts of the US, such as New York City, smoking has now virtually disappeared.

It is unclear whether the vaping epidemic will cause lung cancer cases to rise again.

But several studies now suggest that those who puff on the devices have a higher risk of the disease.

In 1980, the lung cancer rate among men was 52.4 per 100,000 people. However, for women this was 28.4 per 100,000.