Abbott Northwestern Hospital offers smokers a lifesaving deal: discounted CT scans

[Pioneer Press, June 30, 2011] Abbott Northwestern Hospital wants smokers to kick the habit while encouraging a new one: annual CT scans.

The Minneapolis hospital said Wednesday that it is offering low-dose CT lung screening to current or former smokers ages 50 to 74 who have a significant history of smoking.

The announcement was timed to today's publication in the New England Journal of Medicine of results from a landmark study that found annual screenings for lung cancer could cut the death risk by 20 percent for a group of current and former heavy smokers.

But doctors cautioned that a patient's decision to get a scan - which will cost a discounted $300 at Abbott Northwestern - is not an easy one to make.

Read the story on the Pioneer Press website.