While prevention through tobacco control remains the primary investment in further reducing mortality rates due to lung cancer, earlier detection also has great potential to deliver improved outcomes.
This is particularly evident in near future outcomes given that around 50% of individuals diagnosed with lung cancer have already given up smoking.
The gulf between survival at early (stage I) compared with late (stage IV) diagnosis is one of the widest in all cancers, with the five-year relative survival after early diagnosis around 70% while stage IV is only around 3%.
Lung cancer screening can deliver benefits through increased early detection rates, especially when delivered systematically in an organised program supported by accessible and equitable treatment pathways.
Organised cancer screening to date has been implemented for cancers of the bowel, cervix, and breast, through programs that have delivered significant population health gains (informed by evidence published by Daffodil Centre researchers and our research and government partners).
Although our researchers and collaborators have been studying the potential benefits of lung cancer screening for many years, previous government evidence reviews had been unable to show that an organised screening program would deliver more benefits than harms or that screening would be economically beneficial.
This equation began to change as global trial data were released.
This is a great example of government and nongovernment sectors working together to advance cancer control policy with potential to significantly reduce the burden of Australia’s leading cause of cancer death.
Experience shows that much more needs to be done across all sectors to ensure the program is developed in line with the evidence and is integrated with key areas such as smoking cessation and health services – where the Daffodil Centre will continue to publish and promote independent research evidence designed to inform policy and practice.
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