David Carbone, MD, PhD, is determined to reduce the number of lung-cancer deaths. “Lung cancer is the number-one cause of cancer deaths for men and for women in this country, and worldwide,” said Carbone, a lung cancer expert and director of the James Thoracic Oncology Center. “That’s why lung-cancer screening is so important.” In this episode, Carbone discusses the new James mobile lung cancer screening unit, which will travel Ohio screening at-risk and underserved people. The goal is to diagnosis lung cancer in the very earliest of stages, when it is more treatable. This will lead to a reduction in the number of lung-cancer related deaths in Ohio. Smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer, leading to about 85 percent of all lung-cancer diagnoses, Carbone said. The at-risk population the mobile unit will screen is defined as people over 50 who have smoked the equivalent of a pack a day for 20 years and have quit smoking less than 15 years ago. “These are the people who are at the highest risk, but we are studying ways to broaden the criteria and screen more people,” Carbone said. Screening at-risk people is vital because a lung-cancer tumor “can reach a reasonable size, a softball size, and the person won’t feel anything, no cough, no symptoms,” Carbone explained, adding that symptoms don’t materialize until the lung cancer has metastasized, spread to other parts of the body and is very difficult to treat.