Do lung cancer scans deter smokers from giving up?

Getting the 'all clear' can provide false reassurance - meanwhile, positive results can lead to needless investigations

These days, even the most defiant smoker is unlikely to be ignorant of the health risks associated with a 40-a-day habit. But what if you could have an annual Cat scan of your lungs for cancer? To catch out nodules twisting into shadows of malignant cells. If that scan was clear, would you stop smoking? Or would you light up outside the hospital and take your chances for another year?

In a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine this week, almost half of smokers (49% of 35 participants) who received the all-clear for lung cancer said screening lowered their motivation to give up. Dr Steven B Zeliadt, its lead author, stated: "If we want to save lives from smoking, we should take all this money being spent on screening and double down on smoking cessation efforts." These things are hardly binary: it does not have to be either screening or cessation. Nonetheless, screening was found in one study to reduce lung cancer deaths by 20% - prompting a US screening programme.