In an Expert Q&A Sammy Quaife tells The Conversation that the rollout of the NHS England National targeted lung cancer screening programme is expected to detect lung cancer in about 9000 people each year, with most of them found to have early-stage disease.
Providing the rationale, logistics, and significance of the programme, she writes that because lung cancer is often detected too late, it has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers, killing around 35,000 people each year in the UK. To detect it earlier, the NHS England nationwide screening programme, which has already begun in some areas, will ramp up from 2025, inviting smokers and former smokers aged 55-74 to have their lungs scanned. Because people often do not have symptoms, lung cancer is difficult to diagnose early. With screening, lung cancer can be very treatable. In areas of England where the programme is already being offered, three-quarters of people who had lung cancer found by screening had it detected early.