Cleveland Clinic leading clinical program to improve early-stage lung cancer...( Chicago November 26 2007 Cleveland C...)

Chicago, November 26, 2007 Cleveland Clinic and Riverain Medical today announced the establishment of the first study in an ongoing program to determine whether chest X-ray CAD (computer-aided detection) can improve practical early detection of lung cancer. The program is designed to determine whether chest X-ray CAD can help identify hard to detect lung cancers at an early stage when they are most treatable, leading to improved patient survival rates.

The announcement of the clinical program was made at the 93rd Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America being held November 25-30, 2007, in Chicago, IL.

Developing early detection methods is a key to improving trea™ent of lung cancer, said Micheal Phillips, M.D., Section Head of Imaging Sciences in Cleveland Clinics Depar™ent of Diagnostic Radiology. As it stands now, trea™ent options are limited because identifying malignant lung tumors in their early stage is so difficult.

The evaluation of X-Ray CAD is being funded by a grant from the State of Ohio. Moulay Meziane, M.D, is the principal investigator for the five-year study that will involve 9,000 test subjects. Investigators are currently conducting retrospective studies to evaluate the performance of the CAD system and the readers using it. The participants for the clinical trial will be enrolled in early 2008.

Lung cancer kills more people in the United States annually than breast, prostate and colon cancers combined.* Eighty million chest X-rays are taken each year for a variety of reasons including persistent cough, routine physical exam, pre-operative preparation and many others. ♦ Chest X-rays are then viewed and analyzed by radiologists who provide an evaluation based on a visual assessment of the chest radiograph evaluation of the results. However, without chest X-ray CA
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