Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other cancer. 229,410 new cases are projected in 2026. 124,990 people will die. And we have a screening test - low-dose CT - that catches it early, when Stage I survival is 77% and Stage IV survival is 9%.
So why are we still screening the wrong people?
A study published July 21, 2026 in JAMA Network Open answers that question with uncomfortable precision. Researchers at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital analyzed 89,860 patients diagnosed with lung cancer in South Korea between 2013 and 2018. Then they asked one question: how many of these actual lung cancer patients would have been eligible for screening under established guidelines from the USPSTF, ACS, and NCCN?
The answer: 35.4%.
Sixty-five percent of people who actually got lung cancer would not have been invited to the screening that might have saved them.
📊 This is not a data artifact. This is a structural failure in how we define risk.
1. What the Study Actually Found
The JAMA Netwo…
