What is a 'helical low-dose CT scan'?

What is a 'helical low-dose CT scan'?

Jay M. Lee (Surgical Director, Thoracic Oncology Program, UCLA) gives expert video advice on: How is lung cancer diagnosed?; What are some common non-surgical procedures used to diagnose lung cancer?; Can waiting for a lung cancer diagnosis cause a dangerous delay in treatment? and more...

A helical low-dose CT scan is a very high resolution imaging study. It is a CAT scan to look at your lungs to detect lung nodules. In today's age, our technology's gotten so good that we're able to detect even very small nodules in the lung itself. So this has pushed physicians to order these studies for high risk patients, current smokers or former smokers that are clearly at risk of developing lung cancer. So this has raised the issue of utilizing these CT scans as a screening tool and as a result there is a national study currently evaluating the efficiency and how effective this is in terms of reducing patient mortality. But at the current time it is not officially endorsed that patients should undergo routine screening.