Pilot lung health check schemes in London, Liverpool and Manchester demonstrate that it is possible to “reach the unreachable” and diagnose lung cancer early in people at high risk.
Delegates at the BTS Winter Meeting heard that targeted screening, intended to reach older people from deprived communities who are current smokers, resulted in cancer diagnosis rates of around 2% to 3%, with high rates of early diagnosis (80% in Manchester) and resectable cancers.
One key aim was to “diminish the fear and fatalism” around lung cancer, said Dr Martin Ledsom, consultant at Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, who was presenting data from the Liverpool Healthy Lung Project to the conference. “I wanted to change the messaging – it is a curable disease.”
He said that including tests for COPD raises the value of the project for commissioners and participants.
The three pilots used GP data, including smoking data, to identify patients likely to be eligible for CT scans. Patients were then approached by letter and invited to attend a “lung health check”.