St. Barnabas Hospital has started a new early lung cancer screening program for smokers.

“The whole idea of screening is to detect lung cancer at a very early stage, and during this time patients do not have symptoms,” says Dr. Raghu Loganathan, pulmonary medicine director at St. Barnabas.

People between the ages of 55 and 80 with a long history of smoking are encouraged to participate in the program.

According to the state Health Department, more than 20,000 New Yorkers die from smoking-related cancers every year.