Production of Letters to the Editor by Peter Bach, Gerard Silvestri, and Claudia Henschke, on the subject of computed tomography screening for lung cancer in the April 15 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, predated the AACR policy of publishing all authors' conflict of interest disclosures. In the interest of transparency, we are publishing disclosures originally provided to AACR by Drs. Bach and Silvestri and, more recently, by Dr. Henschke.

Dr. Bach has disclosed no potential conflicts of interest.

Dr. Silvestri has disclosed speaker's honoraria from Olympus, ownership interest in Alveolus, and consulting relationships with Olympus and Alveolus.

Dr. Henschke has the following relationship with General Electric and the National Cancer Institute (NCI):

  • General Electric: Dr. Henschke is a co-inventor on a patent and other pending patents owned by Cornell Research Foundation (CRF) which are non-exclusively licensed and related to General Electric for technology involving computer-aided diagnostic methods, including measurement of nodules. She receives royalties from CRF pursuant to Cornell policy, which in turn is consistent with the Bayh-Dole Act.

  • NCI: Dr. Henschke is compensated for serving as a study section member for NCI.

Dr. Henschke also receives research support in the form of grants and contracts from: American Legacy Foundation, Flight Attendants' Medical Research Institute, NCI, AstraZeneca, Inc., Carestream Health, Inc., and the Foundation for Lung Cancer: early detection, prevention and treatment (primary source of funding was an unrestricted gift by the Vector group, the parent company of Liggett Tobacco).

The following is a listing of the patent and patent applications in which Claudia Henschke is listed as a co-inventor.

  1. U.S. Patent No. 7,274,810 “System and Method for Three-Dimensional Image Rendering and Analysis” (Patent issued to CRF September 25, 2007); CRF has two pending divisional applications related to this Patent.

  2. CRF has two pending patent applications for “System, Method, and Apparatus for Small Pulmonary Nodule Computer Aided Diagnosis from Computed Tomography Scans.”

  3. CRF has a pending patent application for “System and Method for Providing Remote Analysis of Medical Data.”

  4. CRF has a pending patent application for “System and Method for Analyzing Medical Data to Determine Diagnosis and Treatment.”

  5. CRF has a pending patent application for “System and Method for Conducting a Clinical Trial Study.”

  6. CRF has a pending PCT application for “Medical Imaging Visibility Index System and Method for Cancer Lesions.”

  7. CRF has a pending patent application (and foreign pending patent applications) for “Method for Expanding the Domain of Imaging Software in a Diagnostic Workup.”

  8. CRF has a pending patent application for “System and Method for Position Matching of a Patient for Medical Imaging.”

  9. Dr. Henschke is an inventor on a pending patent application for Medical Imaging System for Accurate Measurement Evaluation of Changes in a Target Lesion (foreign patent applications also pending).

Bach P: Computed tomography screening for lung cancer (letter). Clin Cancer Res 2008;14:2511.

Silvestri G: Deaths among patients with screen-detected lung cancer (letter). Clin Cancer Res 2008;14:2511.

Henschke C: In response (letter). Clin Cancer Res 2008;14:2511–2.

American Association for Cancer Research
2008