New Daffodil Centre research, published in Public Health Research & Practice, estimates how many people will be eligible for the National Lung Cancer Screening Program when it is launched in July 2025.
“Currently, the five-year survival rate at stage one lung cancer is around 70% while stage four survival is below 5%. Without screening, only 12% of cases are diagnosed at stage one, lung cancer screening, targeted at those at high risk, could save thousands more lives.”
Associate Professor Marianne Weber
What is the National Lung Cancer Screening Program?
In May 2023, the Australian Government announced they will fund a $264million National Lung Cancer Screening Program for at risk Australians, that is set to commence next year. The program could be a gamechanger for cancer outcomes and has positioned Australia to become a global leader in lung cancer screening, saving thousands more lives.
“Clinical trials have shown that screening can save lives in significant numbers through earlier diagnosis,” says Associate Professor Marianne Weber, stream lead of Lung Cancer Policy and Evaluation at the Daffodil Centre.
How does a targeted approach drive results?
The program will be targeted at individuals aged 50-70 years with a cigarette smoking history equivalent to 20 cigarettes per day for 30 years, and either currently smoke or have quit within the past ten years.
Estimating the number of people who will qualify for lung cancer screening is important for understanding the impact of screening on resource use and for program evaluation over time. Since there is currently no comprehensive collection of data on smoking behaviours at a population level, the Daffodil Centre has estimated the number of people eligible for the program over the first five years using data from a national health survey.
Who is eligible for Australia’s new Lung Cancer Screening Program?
The new research from the Daffodil Centre shows that 13-14% of the Australian population (aged 50-70 years) are estimated to meet the National Lung Cancer Screening Program age and smoking criteria over the first five years of the program. That is almost 931,000 individuals that will be able to take part as of 1 July 2025.
Eligible individuals will be able to access a free low dose CT scan of the chest every 2 years to check for early signs of lung cancer.
Read the research
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare who supplied data from the National Drug Strategy Household Survey to be used in this analysis.
Funding
This work was funded by a Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) Preventive and Public Health Research Initiative: 2019 Target Health System and Community Organisation Research Grant Opportunity, No. MRF1200535.
