About five years ago, Vanderbilt University epidemiologist Melinda Aldrich discovered something about the U.S. cancer care system that has eaten at her ever since.
Aldrich had been studying the public health benefits of preventive lung cancer screening, widely seen as a critical first line of defense against a disease that kills more than 120,000 Americans a year — more than the combined total for breast, colon, and prostate cancers. Lung cancer is extraordinarily difficult to treat in its advanced stages, and the earlier it is detected, the better a person’s odds for survival, many experts say.
