MINNEAPOLIS, 9:04 a.m. CST, March 7, 2007 -- An international study looking at CT scans of current and former smokers for lung cancer found that screening did not reduce deaths from lung cancer.

Although CT screening detected nearly three times as many lung cancers as predicted, the researchers found that early detection and treatment did not lead to a corresponding decrease in advanced lung cancers or a reduction in deaths from lung cancer.

"The purpose of large-scale screening is to save lives, but after five years of follow-up, our data provides no evidence that CT screening prevented deaths from lung cancer," said Colin Begg, M.D., chairman of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Memorial Sloan-Kettering and the paper's senior author.

"Our findings are consistent with the results of earlier studies of lung cancer screening with chest X-rays, which showed no benefit to this type of screening for current and former smokers."

The multi-center study, led by researchers at Sloan-Kettering, found no advantage to using CT screening on current or former smokers -- the population at highest risk for developing lung cancer.

The findings appear in the March 7 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.