NORFOLK, NE -- Dr. Ben LaCrosse, a Norfolk native and onsite Board-Certified Radiologist at Fountain Point Imaging Center in Norfolk, is raising awareness about the benefits of Low-Dose Chest CT scan for lung cancer screening.

The director of advocacy for the lung association of Nebraska and Kansas recently released a statement regarding Nebraska lagging on the screenings and LaCrosse felt it past time to help educate community members on lung cancer and the screening available in Norfolk.

According to Sara Prem, director of advocacy for the lung association in Nebraska and Kansas, Nebraska ranked 33rd among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in screening high-risk residents, with just 3.7% of that group getting scanned. This is a hard statistic to accept, as this simple test has been shown to reduce a patient’s risk of dying from lung cancer by 20%.

Furthermore, recently published studies have shown 20-year lung cancer-specific survival rates of 81% for patients whose cancers were found on screening CT scans. This is because many of the cancers were caught at an earlier stage. Currently, the average 5-year survival for all lung cancers is only 18.6% because symptoms of lung cancer often arise after it has spread in the chest or elsewhere in the body.

LaCrosse has a few other stats he would like to share with northeast Nebraska residents. Lung cancer is the #1 cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. Lung Cancer kills more people than breast, prostate, and colon cancer combined. Lung cancer is curable when found early, which is why high-risk patients should get screened with Low-Dose Chest CT. Low-Dost Chest CT is a painless, fast, CT scan taking only seconds to complete. In fact, it has a very low radiation dose. It is the same dose as the background radiation we receive from living on earth for four months.