Media Coverage

Why screening for the deadliest cancer in the U.S. misses most cases

Under current recommendations, people are eligible for screening if they are 50 to 80 years old and have a history of heavy smoking, either actively or in the past 15 years. But those guidelines exclude a large number of people who could have their cancer detected earlier, according to a new study published Thursday in JAMA Network Open, a peer-reviewed journal.

“A majority of the lung cancer patients in this country would not meet the screening criteria as it exists currently,” said Ankit Bharat, the study’s lead author and executive director of the Canning Thoracic Institute at Northwestern Medicine. “If we have a more broader screening program, similar to breast and colon, then we would be able to detect substantially more patients at earlier stage.”

These women were diagnosed with lung cancer. They weren’t eligible for screening.

People still think of lung cancer as a disease that only affects older men and lifetime smokers, even though it’s becoming more common in younger women and people who never smoked, said lead study author Dr. Ankit Bharat, executive director of the Northwestern Medicine Canning Thoracic Institute in Chicago. “Every day, we are seeing patients who’ve never smoked, who may have had passive smoking exposure, they’re coming with advanced lung cancer, and then it’s not curable.”

Bharat’s research found that 65% of lung cancer patients at Northwestern didn’t qualify for screening based on the current guidelines. Women, Asian Americans and nonsmokers diagnosed with lung cancer were likelier to be ineligible for screening, the study found.

Northwestern Medicine receives $25M from Kent and Liz Dauten for behavioral health

Northwestern Medicine has received a $25 million donation from Kent and Liz Dauten and their family foundation to create a new behavioral health institute.

“This investment allows us to really jump-start that work that we’ve already begun,” said Dr. Sachin Patel, chair of the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern Medicine.

“It allows for all of our hospitals and clinical sites around the state to begin to come together, to work together more effectively, to synergize clinical programs and offer the same high quality care at all of our sites,” Patel said.

There’s no proof each strike on alleged drug boats saves 25,000 lives, as Trump claims

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that military strikes on suspected drug boats his administration has been carrying out for more than two months in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean are saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S.

Lori Ann Post, the director of the Institute for Public Health and Medicine at Northwestern University, explained that “there’s no empirically sound way to say a single strike ‘saves 25,000 lives,’” even if the statement is interpreted more broadly to mean preventing substance use disorders and resulting ripple effects. Among the issues she pointed to are a lack of verifiable cargo data or published models linking such boat strikes to changes in drug use, as well as markets that will adapt to isolated supply losses.

Can SAD Lamps Help With Seasonal Depression?

More recent analyses of clinical trials on light therapy, including one published in 2020 and another in 2024, concluded that light therapy was better than placebo treatments at improving the symptoms of seasonal depression.

“The research is really quite compelling,” said Dr. Dorothy Sit, an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine.

Online Tool Helps Younger Adults Plan For Their Long-Term Heart Health

— Usually, it’s not until late middle age that folks start worrying about heart disease.

But a first-of-its-kind online calculator is now available to help adults as young as 30 forecast their risk of heart problems decades out, researchers reported Nov. 17 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

“We don’t want to wait until it is too late, and someone has had an event” like a heart attack or stroke, senior researcher Dr. Sadiya Khan, a professor of cardiovascular epidemiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a news release.

“Consider it like saving for retirement,” Khan said. “We have to start now.”

New heart disease calculator predicts 30-year risk for young adults

A new online heart risk calculator could help younger adults learn whether they’re likely to develop heart disease, as much as 30 years in the future, according to a study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on Monday. That’s a significantly longer time period compared with traditional screenings, including the Framingham risk calculator or the ASCVD Risk Estimator Plus, which measure a 10-year risk for people ages 40 and older.

“This tool was motivated by helping younger adults understand their long-term risk for heart disease,” said senior study author Sadiya Khan, the Magerstadt professor of cardiovascular epidemiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “We all procrastinate, but prioritizing health has to start today — and can with this tool.”