Study says many lung cancer tumors prove harmless
CHICAGO— Harmless lung cancer? A provocative study found that nearly 1 in 5 lung tumors detected on CT scans are probably so slow-growing that they would never cause problems.
The analysis suggests the world’s No. 1 cause of cancer deaths isn’t as lethal as doctors once thought.
In the study, these were not false-positives — suspicious results that turn out upon further testing not to be cancer. These were indeed cancerous tumors, but ones that caused no symptoms and were unlikely ever to become deadly, the researchers said.