Let’s Change the Face of Lung Cancer… Together!

Manhattan, New York. On April 2rd, Former NFL player and Team Draft Co-Founder, Chris Draft and Lt. Commander Corey Carter, MD Walter Reed Military Hospital came to VA’s Manhattan campus. They were videotaped in conversation with Chief of Radiology Patrick Malloy,MD. Mr. Draft, whose wife Keasha, a non-smoker, died of lung cancer at the age of 38, and Dr. Carter have been working with the VHA National Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention for the past year on efforts to promote lung cancer screening, early diagnosis and treatment and research related to reducing deaths caused by this often fatal disease. The videotape will be posted on the NFL website on April 14.

VA New York Harbor Healthcare System was chosen as a site for the videotaped interview because of the Harbor’s current participation in a national demonstration project involving eight VA medical centers. The demonstration project is designed to determine how VA can successfully implement a national lung cancer screening program for Veterans at high risk for lung cancer, using low dose CT scans, and to provide VA leadership with information that will be needed if screening is recommended nationally.

Dr. Malloy said that,, “VA New York Harbor Healthcare System recently started offering to select Veterans low dose CT scans to screen for lung cancer,” He explained that Veterans who are between the ages of 55 to 80 and who are, or have been heavy smokers and are still smoking or have quit less than 15 years ago may be eligible and choose to be screened. Dr. Malloy said that the low dosage scans present little health risk and potentially offer the huge benefit of early detection.” Dr. Malloy added, “All Veterans who smoke are urged to quit. VA healthcare providers have many ways to help smokers break the habit.”