Accelerating integration of tobacco use treatment in the context of lung cancer screening: Relevance and application of implementation science to achieving policy and practice.

Based on the findings from the National Lung Screening Trial, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual low dose computed tomography (LDCT) lung cancer screening (LCS) among high-risk adults. Approximately 54% of individuals seeking LCS report current cigarette smoking. Effective smoking cessation interventions, offered at the time of LCS, enhances the health benefits of screening that are attributable to reductions in lung cancer overall and tobacco-related mortality. Considering these data, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) 2015 decision to cover LCS with LDCT required that radiology imaging facilities make tobacco cessation interventions available for people who smoke. In February 2022, CMS reversed their 2015 coverage requirement for delivering tobacco use treatment at the time of LDCT; CMS retained the requirement for counseling during the shared decision-making visit prior to the exam. The policy change does not diminish the importance of offering high-quality tobacco cessation services in conjunction with routine LDCT for LCS. However, LCS programs face a range of barriers to implementing tobacco use treatment in their settings. As a result, implementation has lagged. Closing the "evidence to practice" gap is the focus of implementation science, a field that offers a set of rigorous methods and a systematic approach to identifying and overcoming contextual barriers to implementing evidence-based guidelines in a range of clinical settings. In this paper, we describe how implementation science frameworks and methods can be used to help guide LCS programs in their efforts to integrate tobacco use treatment and discuss policy changes needed to further facilitate the delivery of TUT as an essential component of the LCS process. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. There is strong evidence, from a large number of international studies, that lung cancer screening for people who meet specific criteria, can reduce lung cancer-related deaths. Based on these findings, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid decided to provide insurance coverage for lung cancer screening for eligible patients. This includes people aged 50–80 years who have a 20 pack-year smoking history and currently smoke or have quit within the past 15 years. Over 50% of people who seek lung cancer screening report current cigarette smoking. Studies show that offering these smokers support to quit at the time of screening can further increase survival rates by reducing both deaths from lung cancer and other tobacco-related diseases. Unfortunately, lung cancer screening programs do not consistently provide effective treatments to help smokers quit. This is a missed opportunity to engage smokers in quitting when the health risk of tobacco use is most salient, and therefore smokers may be more willing to engage in tobacco use treatment. This paper provides detailed guidance on how programs can implement high quality tobacco use treatment services in conjunction with lung cancer screening.

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© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.