Our lung cancer risk assessment tool is an online questionnaire that can calculate a long-term smoker’s risk of developing lung cancer in the next ten years based on his or her age, sex, smoking history, and asbestos exposure.
Who Can Use This Tool?
This prediction tool was designed to be used by physicians and people who are at risk for lung cancer. The tool can assess the lung cancer risk of people who meet all of these conditions:
- Age: 50 to 75 years old.
- Smoking history: 10 to 60 cigarettes a day for 25 to 55 years.
- Current status: Current smokers, and former smokers who quit 20 years ago or less.
Why Is This Tool Useful?
Knowing about risk can help clinicians and patients make decisions about healthcare, such as whether to get screened for lung cancer.
Our research shows that among long-term smokers over the age of 50, risks of developing lung cancer can vary. However, the lung cancer risk of a person who has never smoked is typically much lower than the lowest percentages calculated by this tool. Quitting smoking not only reduces risk of lung cancer, but reduces risk of many other smoking-related health problems.
Researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in collaboration with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, developed and tested this risk assessment tool. The tool is based on data from the Carotene and Retinol Efficacy Trial (CARET), a large, randomized trial of lung cancer prevention.
What Information Will You Need?
In order for this nomogram to provide an accurate prediction, you will need to include accurate values for all of the information below.
- Patient’s age
- Patient’s gender
- Number of years the patient has smoked cigarettes
- The average number of cigarettes the patient smoked per day during his or her years as a smoker
- How many years the patient has been a non-smoker, if he or she has quit
- Whether or not the patient has been exposed to asbestos at work
To better understand the results of this prediction tool, patients should discuss the results with their doctors.
Use our lung cancer risk assessment tool.
Contact Us
If you have questions or comments about this tool, please contact us at publicaffairs@mskcc.org.
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