Cross Party Group acknowledges need for early lung cancer screening in Scotland

The need to consider a formal recommendation on early screening for lung cancer was acknowledged by the Cross Party Group for Cancer, held at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh on January 21^st 2020. Attended by over 40 people representing patients, the medical community, and the pharmaceutical industry as well as political advisers and Members of the Scottish Parliament, the Group agreed to write to the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon and Cabinet Secretary for Health & Sport, Jeanne Freeman to request urgent consideration of a screening program in Scotland for people at risk of developing lung cancer.

Survival rates from lung cancer by patients diagnosed in Scotland is among the lowest in Europe and lung cancer is the biggest killer of all cancers.

“Many more lives could be saved if lung cancer was diagnosed earlier through a screening program” said Dr Adam M Hill, Chief Executive of Oncimmune who was a guest speaker at the Cross Party Group meeting. Dr Hill presented the findings of a recent trial in Scotland among 12,000 high risk people using a simple blood test, called EarlyCDT^® Lung, in conjunction with CT scanning, to detect lung cancer. The trial, known as Early Detection of Lung Cancer in Scotland (ECLS), showed that the blood test can improve the likelihood of early detection by 14% thereby potentially saving thousands of lives across the UK.

Lung cancer survivor, Rebecca Allison from Glasgow was one of the participants in the trial and she told her story to the Cross Party Group.

I was one of the lucky ones, my lung cancer was detected early with the blood test, despite it not showing up on scans and I had no symptoms. We need this blood test across the UK – it would save so many lives.”

Lung cancer is one of the most prevalent forms of cancer and kills more women than both breast and ovarian cancers. Five year survival rates for breast and bowel cancer patients are 86% and 59% respectively. Both these cancers have screening programs. Five year survival for lung cancer, which has no screening program, is less than 10%.

Professor Bob Steele, Director of the UK National Screening Committee attended the meeting and admitted during the questions that a recommendation on screening for lung cancer should be prioritized and that the blood test could have a role in this, particularly if it “reduced the number of people having unnecessary CT scans”.

The Cross Party Group on Cancer was chaired by Anas Sarwar, Member of the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow and minutes of the meeting will be made available in the public domain.