One might expect that smokers who decide to have themselves checked for lung cancer with a CAT scan must also be giving some serious thought to giving up cigarettes.

A new study suggests that this may be the case — and urges the doctors who conduct the scans to accompany them with advice to patients about ways to quit smoking. Researchers from Weill Medical College of Cornell University and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center found that almost a quarter of smokers surveyed six months after their scans reported having quit. Twenty-six percent more said they cut back, the researchers report in the December issue of Preventive Medicine. Dr. Jamie S. Ostroff, a psychologist at Sloan-Kettering and an author of the study, said it was unclear how much the results of the scans contributed to the decisions to quit. But she said some smokers quit even though the scans showed that their lungs looked healthy. The findings, she said, suggest that still more smokers seeking scans could be led to quit with the right counseling. "The ground here is fertile," Dr. Ostroff said, "and we know there are proven methods to help individuals to quit." The study looked at the experiences of 134 smokers who enrolled in the Early Lung Cancer Action Program at Cornell. Dr. Claudia I. Henschke, a radiology professor at Cornell and the senior author of the report, said she got the idea for the study after some patients who had undergone the lung scans got in touch with her and said they had given up smoking.

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