However, life is not simply a machine that divides. Instead, life is integrated with its surroundings, both on a cellular and a chemical level. The recent advances in building cellular mimics capable of sensing and responding to small molecules opens an exciting alternative to
the prevalent attempts at building bottom-up cells. Perhaps it is time to allow a bacterium to judge our work. Papers of particular interest, published within the period of review, have been highlighted as: • of special interest We thank the Armenise-Harvard foundation, the autonomous province of Trento, and CIBIO for financial support. “
“Dozens of national professional societies as well as the US Preventive Services Task Force currently recommend annual CT lung screening for an estimated 7 million current and former heavy smokers meeting the National Lung Screening Trial (NLST) entry criteria 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Vorinostat chemical structure 10 and 11. The Preventive Services Task Force, the AG-014699 mouse National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), and others have expanded their screening recommendations beyond the NLST study population to include certain younger patients, older patients, and patients with additional risk factors also considered to be at high risk for lung cancer 5, 7 and 10. In October 2011, the NCCN recommended annual CT lung screening for two groups of high-risk individuals [7]: • NCCN high-risk
group 1: NLST study population ○ 55 to 74 years of age Inclusion of the group 2 population into annual lung screening has generated controversy because this group was not formally evaluated in the NLST or other CT lung screening trials. In January 2012, our institution began offering clinical CT lung screening as a community benefit to individuals aged ≤74 years meeting
either NCCN group 1 or group 2 high-risk criteria. In this article, we compare the demographic characteristics and rates of positive findings, significant incidental findings, and malignancy between our group 2 and group 1 populations and the NLST study much results. This was a retrospective, single-center study of our experience with clinical CT lung screening approved by the institutional review board. We reviewed results for consecutive individuals undergoing clinical CT lung screening at our institution from January 2012 through December 2013. To qualify for screening, individuals had to satisfy the NCCN high-risk criteria, be asymptomatic, have physician orders for CT lung screening, be free of lung cancer for ≥5 years, and have no known metastatic disease. CT scheduling staff members conducted structured telephone interviews with screening candidates to assign them into 1 of 3 groups: group 1 (high risk), group 2 (high risk), or group 3 (moderate or low risk). If screening candidates fulfilled the group 1 criteria, other lung cancer risk factors were not assessed. Those not qualifying for group 1 underwent sequential assessment of group 2 risk factors.