Lung cancer screening: the hidden public health emergency

Emily Stone; Rachael Dodd; Henry Marshall; Billie Bonevski; Nicole Rankin

doi:10.1071/phrp3312302

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Lung cancer screening: the hidden public health emergency

Emily Stone ^A ^B ^C ^* , Rachael Dodd ^C ^D , Henry Marshall ^E ^F , Billie Bonevski ^G and Nicole Rankin ^C ^H

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Department of Thoracic Medicine and Lung Transplantation, St Vincentâ€™s Hospital Sydney, NSW, Australia

^B School of Clinical Medicine, UNSW Sydney, Australia

^C School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney, NSW, Australia

^D The Daffodil Centre, a joint venture between Cancer Council NSW and University of Sydney, Australia

^E Department of Thoracic Medicine, Prince Charles Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

^F Thoracic Research Centre, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

^G Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine and Public Health, Flinders University, Adelaide, South Australia

^H Evaluation and Implementation Science Unit, School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

^* Correspondence to: emily.stone@unsw.edu.au

Public Health Research and Practice 33, e3312302 https://doi.org/10.17061/phrp3312302

Published: 15 March 2023

2023 © Stone et al. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence, which allows others to redistribute, adapt and share this work non-commercially provided they attribute the work and any adapted version of it is distributed under the same Creative Commons licence terms.

Abstract

Lung cancer causes nearly 2 million deaths per year worldwide, and cases continue to rise. Most lung cancer is diagnosed at late, incurable stages, and the five-year survival is a fraction of that for other common cancers, including breast, prostate, melanoma and colorectal cancer. Lung cancer screening (LCS) in high-risk populations using low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) could potentially save thousands of lives per year by shifting the stage at diagnosis to early curable disease. Although an LCS program has not yet started in Australia, two trials have provided local data on the feasibility, selection criteria and outcomes. A government-commissioned report has detailed a potential national program, and Federal Budget funding has been committed to early feasibility projects that include population-specific consultations with, for example, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities who are at higher risk of lung cancer due to high smoking rates. Effective recruitment to LCS, embedded smoking cessation and the provision of subsequent lung cancer care to all at-risk Australians remain key priorities for any future LCS program.

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