Cleveland Clinic Faoundation and Riverain Medical, Wright State University, and University Hospitals Health System have formed a multidisciplinary research and commercialization program known as ELDDA (Early Lung Disease Detection Alliance), a program that will develop, test through clinical trials, and market new image-analysis systems that will accelerate the detection of llung cancer and other lung diseases.
The program’s current study will determine whether chest x-ray computer aided detection (CAD) can improve early detection of lung cancer. The announcement of the program was made at the 93rd Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America being held this week.
Lung cancer kills more people in the United States annually than do breast, prostate, and colon cancers combined.* "Developing early detection methods is a key to improving treatment of lung cancer," said Michael Phillips, MD, section head of imaging sciences at Cleveland Clinic’s department of diagnostic radiology. "As it stands now," says Phillips,"treatment options are limited because identifying malignant lung tumors in their early stages is so difficult."
The American College of Chest Physicians guidelines recommend a chest x-ray for patients with cough and risk factors for lung cancer or metastatic cancer, and chest x-ray CAD detects 16% more solitary pulmonary nodules that could be early-stage lung cancer than would be detected without CAD.
*American Cancer Society Facts & Figures 2007.
