opioids withdrawal

Smoking, lung cancer, and early detection

Smoking is the number one primary cause of premature death in the US (did you know that the obesity-sedentary lifestyle is number two?)

Many pulmonary physicians, including myself, argued for many years that periodic x-rays of the lungs in heavy smokers could save lives. Several years ago a study showed that doing chest CT scans in heavy smokers leads to early detection and possibly a better cure rate. All this was met with harsh criticism from many professional organizations (I wonder why).

But what the pulmonary specialists knew for quite a few years was finally shown to be true in the June 29 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine. The use of low radiation, periodic CT scans of the lungs in heavy smokers led to early cancer detection, and thereby saved many lives. This is not the total answer to lung cancer, but it certainly helps.

So, if you are a heavy smoker and have not discussed the cancer risk issue with your physician, do it now. If your insurance company doesn't cover this screening test, I know several radiology practices that will do it for $300, and it's well worth it.

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Suboxone treatment resources

If, for whatever reason, you have developed an opiate dependency problem, this may be an excellent time for you to quit. Suboxone is gaining popularity as a medical, office-based opioid dependency treatment program.

Fewer than 3% of US physicians are certified to prescribe Suboxone. Most of those certified are psychiatrists. In our area, very few internists, like myself, are Suboxone-certified.

You can find Suboxone-certified physicians at http://www.suboxone.com/, and you can try to match up with one by email at http://www.treatmentmatch.org/local/.

For additional information you may want to watch my interview of the weekend of 11/5/2011, Cablevision channel 12.