I am writing about my husband, Gary Head. He smoked for over 50 years then I heard about the low-dose CT scan as a screening tool for smokers. I asked the nurse practitioner about having this done for my husband and she seemed more concerned about Medicare paying for it.
I told her we'd deal with that but I wanted Gary to have the CT. He had it done and it showed a module that been present in a CT scan done about four years previously had grown and he was sent to a pulmonologist. He did a biopsy which we were told was benign, but then a follow up scan three months later showed the nodule had grown again. Another different type of biopsy showed the tumor on the right lung was stage 2 lung cancer and the tumor on the left was stage 1. He went on to have the top lobe of his right lung removed.
He had chemo and Cyberknife radiation on the left tumor. I worked in a cancer center and I knew that most lung cancers are diagnose at late stages because there was no good screening test. My husband went on to have the top lobe in his left lung removed, his CT scans since then have been clear and he stopped smoking!
He says I saved his life by insisting he get the first scans, but I know the Low dose CT scan being available saved his life!
