Lung cancer screening is an evidence based programme designed to help detect lung cancer at an early stage. Detecting lung cancer at an early stage, when it still isn’t causing any symptoms, can mean that it can be treated radically - which means aiming to cure it/ remove it completely. Lung Cancer only starts to cause symptoms very late in its development and often this can mean that it is too late to cure, by the time it is diagnosed. Lung cancer screening allows those people at risk of developing lung cancer to be regularly checked (screened) for early signs of the disease, so that it can be treated early.
Lung cancer screening aims to diagnose lung cancer early and helps to save lives.
Screening programs are designed to test people for early stages of disease and before any symptoms arise. For any screening to be useful the tests/protocols need to be reliable in detecting the disease, and most importantly the screening must do more good than harm to the patient.
In the UK, lung cancer screening is a 'targeted' programme. This means that only certain people should undertake screening based on clinical necessity.
The lung cancer screening programme at OneWelbeck involves a triage to ensure that you are an appropriate candidate for screening. This is very important as we do not want to expose patients to a CT scan unless we are certain it is indicated/needed and can evidence this need.