Suit seeks chest scans for smokers
Plaintiffs: Tobacco maker should help find cancers early
A federal class-action lawsuit filed in Boston yesterday on behalf of Massachusetts smokers demands that
The suit comes on the heels of a study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in October, that concluded CT screening dramatically increases survival rates among lung cancer patients. It can find tumors in early, treatable stages, when they are too small to be identified with traditional radiography. The finding has the potential to save tens of thousands of lives, since lung cancer is often lethal because it is usually detected too late for treatment to be effective.
Low-dose, noninvasive CT scans cost about $500, but they are rarely covered by health insurance.
The complaint, filed in US District Court, requests that Philip Morris fund CT scans for people at least 50 years old who have smoked a pack of Marlboro cigarettes a day for at least 20 years -- the equivalent of at least 146,000 cigarettes -- and have not been diagnosed with lung cancer. It does not demand monetary damages.
"Philip Morris manufactured a product with a lot of carcinogens that didn't have to be in that product, and a safer cigarette could have been manufactured, but they didn't do it," said Neil T. Leifer of the Boston law firm Thornton & Naumes, which filed the suit with another Boston firm, Todd & Weld, and with Levy Phillips & Konigsberg, a New York firm that filed similar litigation in New York earlier this year.
The plaintiffs are Patricia Cawley of Rockland, Kathleen Donovan of Randolph, and James Teague of Lowell. Each wants a CT screening, but the scans are not covered by their health insurance policies. Leifer said as many as 80,000 Massachusetts residents could become part of the class, an estimate based on public health data and Philip Morris's market share.
"Our clients . . . have smoked those cigarettes that have carcinogens in them for years and now they're at great risk for lung cancer because of the Philip Morris product," Leifer said. "So it seems reasonable to us that Philip Morris ought to provide them this early detection and maybe save their lives."
A call to Philip Morris, based in Richmond, Va., was referred to its parent company, Altria Group Inc., which said it had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.
The lawsuit targets Philip Morris because the company accounts for half of all tobacco product sales. The complaint specifies the company's Marlboro line of cigarettes because the brand has a 40 percent market share, Leifer said.
Lung cancer is the leading cause of US cancer deaths, killing about 160,000 people a year, and smoking is responsible for 87 percent of those fatalities, according to the American Lung Association.
Sacha Pfeiffer can be reached at pfeiffer@globe.com. 
