A Prospective Cohort Evaluation of the Sensitivity and Specificity of the Chest X-Ray for the Detection of Lung Cancer in Symptomatic Adults

•The diagnostic accuracy of the CXR in detecting symptomatic lung cancer.•A positive CXR strongly increases the probability of lung cancer being present.•A negative CXR leads to a limited reduction of the probability of lung cancer.•The findings allow the risk of lung cancer following a negative test to be estimated.