Anthony Stumbo's heart sank after the doctor shared his mother's chest X-ray.'I remember that drive home, bringing her back home, and we basically cried,' said the internal medicine physician, who had started practicing in eastern Kentucky near his childhood home shortly before his mother began feeling ill. 'Nobody wants to get told they've got inoperable lung cancer. I cried because I knew what this meant for her.
'What the Kentucky LEADS program is doing is fantastic, and that is how you really move the needle in implementing lung screening on a larger scale,' said Sands, who isn't affiliated with the Kentucky program and serves as a volunteer spokesperson for the American Lung Association.In 2014, Kentucky expanded Medicaid, increasing the number of lower-income people who qualified for lung cancer screening and any related treatment.