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By DUSTY DONALDSON

The controversy over when to begin breast cancer early detection captured my attention. On the heels of Breast Cancer Awareness Month -- when the world was awash in pink as a reminder to conduct monthly breast self-examinations and have annual mammograms -- women were advised to postpone mammograms for a decade.

Oh, and don't bother yourself with those pesky monthly self-examinations, either. After all, nobody should worry needlessly about a potential false-positive result.

Specifically, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended "against routine screening mammography in women aged 40 to 49 years." The task force also could not determine if there were any benefits (or harm) in breast self-examinations. So, it recommended "against clinicians teaching women how to perform breast self-examination." One of the primary reasons given was the potentially harmful "inconvenience due to false-positive screening results."

As a survivor of the No. 1 cancer killer of women, the inconvenience of a false-positive report is way down my list of concerns. My greater concern is for the thousands of women oblivious to cancer cells growing beneath the surface of their breasts. Without screening, many of these women are walking time bombs.

The panel's recommendation flies in the face of everything we've experienced and been told. No panel of experts will convince survivors that early detection of their cancer was a mistake. If there is one thing we've learned about cancer since President Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971, it's this: Early detection saves lives. So I was encouraged to see the world dismiss the new recommendations outright.

I hope the same rationale is applied to another screening controversy brewing.

You see, the No. 1 cancer killer of women is also the No. 1 cancer killer of men. Lung cancer kills more people than breast, prostate, colon, liver and kidney cancers combined, according to the American Cancer Society. One reason lung cancer is the No. 1 cancer killer is that, although early lung cancer diagnosis and management protocols exist, they have not been embraced as the standard of care. Nor will they until Americans demand it, as they did for breast cancer screening.

Amazingly, the majority of people at risk for developing lung cancer think they are safe. There is more to lung cancer than smoking cessation. Of the 219,000 Americans who will be diagnosed with lung cancer this year, between 65 percent and 70 percent do not smoke. Half are former smokers, like me. I quit smoking more than 30 years ago at the age of 24. And between 15 percent and 20 percent -- more than 35,000 -- never smoked. More Americans who never smoked will die from lung cancer this year than will die from AIDS, leukemia or ovarian cancer, according to the Cancer Society. In North Carolina, more than 6,670 people will be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2009 and 5,670 will die from the disease, according to the ACS.

The five-year survival rate for lung cancer is only 15 percent, compared to breast and prostate survival rates of 85 percent and 99 percent, respectively. Perhaps the low survival rate is because only 16 percent of lung cancer is diagnosed at an early stage when treatment is more likely to be effective, according to National Cancer Institute SEER.

Meanwhile, for the past 13 years, the International Early Lung Cancer Action Program has accrued more than 50,000 CT scans from 30,000 high-risk people (smokers or former smokers over age 50) in observational trials carried out in 40 sites in the U.S. and around the world. Through success in analyzing suspicious nodules and the protocol developed for the management of early disease, the I-ELCAP program has produced 10-year survival rates of 85 percent -- turning the death-survivor rate upside down.

Yes, early detection saves lives. This truth applies to lung cancer and breast cancer alike.

For more information about lung cancer screening, go to www.lungcanceralliance.org.

Dusty Donaldson lives in High Point.