In March of this year (2010) my brother in law and close friend died from Lung Cancer at the relatively young age of 55. He was an extremely well rounded, intelligent and charismatic individual. He maintained the balance of academia and autodidactism that's ironically becoming a scarce commodity in the information age. Having said qualities, he was fully cognizant of the fact that his smoking habit (menthols were his cigarettes of choice) could severely limit his life span. In the 25 years that I knew him he made several attempts to quit smoking (using myriad methodologies). He exercised regularly, ate a well balanced diet and passed his routine check-ups with flying colors. So when I heard about the proposed use of CT scans to detect Lung Cancer it forced me to ruminate over its potential efficacy: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/05/health/research/05cancer.html?ref=health
Clearly smoking isn't an easy addiction to overcome. Smoking cessation is a billion dollar industry in and of itself: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/104949.php
This isn't surprising given how much research and development appears to have been used to create and maintain loyal (read addicted) users:
It's no secret that smoking is "...bad for you..." and that you should never start. Regardless, prohibition will not, nor in my opinion should it, be used to prevent smoking. Once the protocols are perfected having CT scans as an additional diagnostic tool could give individual smokers much early warnings. That said, it could also give some smokers a false sense of security. At the end of the day, smoking prevention/education and finding an effective cessation methodology continue to be the most powerful weapon against cigarette impelled lung cancer.
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