THURSDAY, April 9, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Cancer significant incidental findings (SIF) not related to lung cancer reported in patients undergoing lung cancer screening with low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) are associated with an increased risk for an extrapulmonary cancer diagnosis in the year following screening, according to a study published online March 31 in JAMA Network Open.
Ilana F. Gareen, Ph.D., from the Brown University School of Public Health in Providence, Rhode Island, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study analyzing data from National Lung Screening Trial participants who were randomly assigned to LDCT or chest radiography to examine the association between an SIF considered to be potentially indicative of extrapulmonary cancer detected at LDCT screening and diagnosis of extrapulmonary cancer within one year. A total of 75,104 LDCT screening rounds performed in 26,445 participants were included in the study.
The researchers found that across the three rounds of screening, cancer SIFs were reported for 2,265 screening rounds (3.0 percent) in 1,807 participants (6.8 percent). For 67 participants (3.0 percent), an extrapulmonary cancer was diagnosed following a screening round with a cancer SIF. After covariates and participant-specific adjustments, the marginal risk difference was 13.89 per 1,000 participants. Urinary cancers and other Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results cancer categories, including lymphoma and leukemia, had significantly higher marginal risk differences (17.03 and 13.83 per 1,000 participants, respectively).
"In this paper, we provide an evidence base for making decisions on abnormalities outside of the lungs that might be seen at lung screening," Gareen said in a statement.
One author disclosed ties to Arnold Ventures.