New mobile app assists doctors in evaluating lung cancer risks

Cancer Research UK on Tuesday launched a new smart phone app designed to help doctors assess lung cancer risk in patients with pulmonary nodules.

Developed by Cancer Research UK and the British Thoracic Society, this free iOS app aims to provide doctors with quick and easy access to professional guidelines and risk and growth calculators, so that they can use the mobile devices to accurately manage nodules.

Pulmonary nodules are small masses of tissue in people’s lungs, and although most of them are harmless, some can be cancerous and require treatment. For the time being, doctors have to rely on CT scans and information from patient records to decide what is the next step for patients with pulmonary nodules. Such processes could take a relatively long time.

With this new app, clinicians can quickly decide whether to discharge the patients, bring them back for monitoring in the future or to proceed with more tests to confirm a lung cancer diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment, according to the Cancer Research UK.

“Using smart phones to put this knowledge into clinicians’ hands will enable them make the best possible choices more quickly and efficiently, helping to speed up the time it takes to diagnose lung cancer,” said Dr. Jodie Moffat, Cancer Research UK’s head of early diagnosis.

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New mobile app assists doctors in evaluating lung cancer risks