Promise of Digital Direct-to-Patient Intervention to Improve Lung Cancer Screening Rates

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in the US. Randomized trials have demonstrated that annual lung cancer screening reduces lung cancer–specific mortality by approximately 20% among individuals at high risk due to age and smoking history. Despite being recommended by the US Preventive Services Task Force for more than a decade, uptake of lung cancer screening remains low, with less than 20% of eligible people receiving screening. Multilevel barriers including limited patient awareness, stigma surrounding tobacco use, fatalistic beliefs about lung cancer, and fragmented implementation systems contribute to underuse. These barriers disproportionately affect historically underserved populations, reinforcing disparities in access to lung cancer screening and outcomes by race, ethnicity, geographic location (particularly rural), socioeconomic status, and insurance coverage.