Table 1.

Textbox, explanation of pilot study

Pilot study
A pilot study was conducted to investigate if the indication categories could be used to identify patients with a very bad prognosis a priori
For this pilot study, all patients, older than 40 years and undergoing thoracic CT at the University Medical Center Utrecht and Academic Hospital Maastricht were included. Information about mortality was gathered through linkage with the National Death Registry after complete follow-up
A comparison was made between patients who deceased within 6 months of follow–up and patients who deceased after 6 months of follow-up
Patients with indication categories ‘Suspected primary lung cancer (including mesothelioma)’ and ‘distant metastatic disease from other types of cancer (excluding haematological malignancies)’ had an average mortality rate within 6 months of 33.9%. This was much higher compared to the mortality rate for the other indication categories (mean 10.4%, P < 0.001)
We concluded that the indication categories can discriminate well between patients’ prognoses and could be used to exclude patients with a bad prognosis a priori