肺がん検診の現状と展望

Current Status and Prospects of Lung Cancer Screening

分子標的治療薬や免疫療法など，さまざまな治療方法が使用できるようになった現在でもなお，進行肺癌の予後は不良である．肺癌の診療において早期発見はやはり重要であり，検診の果たすべき役割は大きい．本稿の読者は，胸部外科の臨床医が多いと思われるので，がん検診が必ずしも専門ではない読者も多いと推定される．そのため日本で行われている肺がん検診の仕組みについて概説したうえで，現状での問題点と今後の展望について述べたい．現在日本で肺がん検診として広く行われている方法は，胸部X線検査と喀痰細胞診の併用法である．最近，一部で胸部CT検査を実施するところが出てきた．

The prognosis for advanced lung cancer is still poor, even though various therapeutic methods such as molecular targeted therapeutics and immunotherapy have become available. Early detection is still important in the treatment of lung cancer, and the role of lung cancer screening is very essential.

The current lung cancer screening system in Japan has many problems. Although low-dose chest computed tomography （CT） screening has appeared as a new screening modality, there are still many things to be studied and improved. In this article, the outline of the current system of lung cancer screening in Japan is presented, and then the problems in the system and future prospects are described.