The US Preventive Services Task Force criteria for lung cancer screening often misses patients who are good candidates for screening and is not the most cost-effective strategy, according to a new study.

“The [USPSTF] recommends annual low-dose CT lung cancer screening for persons aged 55 to 80 years who currently smoke or quit within the past 15 years and have at least a 30–pack-year history of cigarette smoking.

These criteria may exclude smokers at high risk for lung cancer who would have been selected for CT screening by individual risk calculators that more specifically account for demographic, clinical and smoking characteristics,” Li C. Cheung, PhD, from the National Cancer Institute, and colleagues wrote.