A number of organizations are celebrating a recent cost-benefit analysis conducted by Millman Inc which found that implementing low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) lung cancer screening for a high-risk segment of the Medicare population would be highly cost-effective.

The article, published in the August issue of American Health and Drug Benefits, addresses the US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) grade B recommendation in December 2013 that heavy smokers aged 55 to 80 receive preventive lung cancer screening. The recommendation was based on findings from a decade-long National Lung Screening Trial, which involved 50,000 patients and identified a 20% drop in mortality rates for high-risk patients after three rounds of LDCT scans.

According to the analysis, 4.9 million Medicare beneficiaries would become eligible for screening in 2014. Researchers determined that LDCT and follow-up diagnostics would cost approximately $1 per insured member per month (PMPM), while the cost per life-year saved would be less than $19,000. That cost is lower than screening for cervical and breast cancers and comparable to colorectal cancer screening.

The American College of Radiology (ACR), the Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA), the Medical Imaging & Technology Alliance (MITA) and the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) issued a statement applauding the findings.

“This analysis completes the enormous body of evidence which demonstrates that lung cancer screening of high-risk Medicare beneficiaries is not only life-saving but more cost-effective than other cancer screening protocols currently covered by Medicare,” said Laurie Fenton Ambrose, president and CEO of LCA. “We saw very similar life-saving, cost-effectiveness results with previous studies on screening the at-risk under 65 population, which some commercial insurers started covering as a benefit in 2011, and which all will be required to do, with few exceptions, over the coming year.”

Bruce Pyenson, principal and consulting actuary for Milliman and one of the study’s coauthors, also published a study in Health Affairs in 2012 arguing that providing LDCT lung cancer screening coverage for high-risk patients is cost-effective.

“The evidence continues to show that implementing comprehensive lung cancer screening programs for high-risk individuals would cure many lung cancers each year and also add years to thousands of people’s lifetimes at a relatively low cost,” he said.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths among the Medicare population and currently leads to more deaths than those from breast, prostate, colon, and pancreas cancers combined. Under the Affordable Care Act, private insurers must begin covering LDCT screening without cost sharing by the end of 2015. No coverage is currently in place for Medicare beneficiaries.