Dear AuntMinnie Member,
The U.S. government's decision on Monday to pay for CT lung cancer screening exams for high-risk smokers is being lauded as a watershed event in public health policy. But the devil is in the details, and many may be disappointed by the number of individuals who ultimately are eligible to be screened under the terms of the proposed decision.
That's according to Dr. Frederic W. Grannis Jr., a thoracic surgeon who believes that the decision by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) contains a number of caveats and requirements that he calls "poison pills." For example, the CMS proposal fails to cover individuals with prior cancer caused by tobacco products, as well as individuals who have quit smoking and those who were exposed to other types of carcinogens. And stopping screening payments at age 74 is a huge mistake, he writes.
Dr. Grannis believes that the CMS guidelines would codify a number of concerns raised by the Medicare Evidence Development and Coverage Advisory Committee, which in April famously refused to recommend CT lung screening -- raising howls of protest from screening proponents.
The upshot is that thousands of lives could be lost among individuals who are at risk for lung cancer but who are not covered under the proposed Medicare guidelines. He is calling for advocacy organizations to urge CMS to revise its proposal and make CT lung cancer screening less restrictive -- and more effective. Read more by clicking here, or visit our CT Community at ct.auntminnie.com.
Alternatives for Mo-99
In other news, visit our Molecular Imaging Community for an article on a start-up firm that hopes to alleviate the shortage of molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), a vital radioisotope that's the precursor to technetium-99m, used throughout nuclear medicine.
The firm has developed a method for producing Mo-99 that doesn't rely on a nuclear reactor, an approach that confers a number of benefits. But the company is still working to build its production facility, which it hopes will be operational by 2017.
Read more by clicking here, or visit the community at molecular.auntminnie.com.
