Lung cancer screening can find lung cancer early when it is most treatable. Offering smoking cessation help to current smokers who wish to quit is an essential part of screening programs. However, we don’t yet know the best way to offer this help, and each lung cancer-screening program is set up differently to best serve their own local community. There is a need to develop a way of offering smoking cessation services that can work in different types of screening programs and help most people quit.

The CASTL study developed a blueprint for smoking cessation services in a lung cancer screening program. 18 different lung cancer screening programs across the country enrolled people who were having lung cancer screenings. Each participant received different combinations of smoking cessation treatments. The study then looked at each combination to see how much it helped people to quit and what problems the program staff encountered when offering it.

The CASTL study is part of a larger national effort called the SCALE (Smoking Cessation at Lung Examination) collaboration. As part of the collaboration, 8 different teams are working to combine their efforts and share what they discover so that screening programs across the country will benefit.

GO2 for Lung Cancer was a key partner in this project and was involved since the initial study design phase with the Principal Investigators, Dr. Jamie Ostroff (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center) and Dr. Donna Shelley (New York University). The study used the GO2 for Lung Cancer's Centers of Excellence in Screening network as field sites for this study. These screening centers are committed to following best practices of lung cancer screening and represent the diverse array of screening program types currently being implemented making them ideal places for this research. GO2 for Lung Cancer staff are key personnel on the CASTL research team and are responsible for site recruitment and coordination.

The following GO2 Screening Centers of Excellence were used as field sites for the study.

This study is funded by National Cancer Institute R01 Grant R01CA207442 to PIs Dr. Jamie Ostroff and Dr. Donna Shelley.

GO2 for Lung Cancer also financially supports additional staff time on this project.  Donate to GO2's research efforts.