The Lung Health Check Pilot

Lung Cancer Screening Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related death in both men and women, and leads to more deaths from cancer than breast, colon and prostate cancer combined(4). When a patient presents symptomatically with lung cancer, this is typically associated with advanced disease and poor survival. Using low-dose CT scan as a method of early detection to identify lung cancer in an at risk population, has been shown to reduce lung cancer mortality by 20-26% in two large clinical trials across the USA and Europe (5,6). The National Lung Cancer Screening Trial (NLST) was launched in 2002 across 33 centres in the USA. In total, almost 54,000 eligible participants were randomised to non-contrast enhanced computed tomography (CT) of the chest for three years versus postero-anterior chest x-ray (CXR). Eligible participants were selected based on clinical criteria, including: age 55-79; >30 pack-year smoking history; <15 years abstinence if former smoker, no history of other life-threatening cancers; no recent haemoptysis or weight loss indicative of lung cancer; no prior chest CT in the past year. The study demonstrated high compliance with screening low-dose CT with >90% of participants attending each annual visit. The study demonstrated a 20.3% relative reduction in lung cancer mortality (247 versus 309) per 100,000 person years with low-dose CT versus CXR. There was also a significant reduction in all-cause mortality by 6.7%. Significantly, low-dose CT was also associated with a 7% risk of an invasive follow-up procedure which resulted in a false positive (4% with CXR). A separate European study (The NELSON trial) investigated the use of low-dose chest CT annually for four years versus no screening in a randomised clinical trial reported in 2020 (5). In this study, eligible participants had to have smoked >15 cigarettes per day for >25 years or >10 cigarettes a day for >30 years. Participants were excluded if any of the following criteria were met: current or past renal cell cancer, melanoma, breast cancer; treatment related to lung cancer in the past 5 years; or a chest CT in the past year. This study did not exclude participants based on age alone. Due to accrual challenges amongst females, the primary endpoint analysis focused on 13,195 men which were randomised in this study. A further 2,594 women were included in the study and their outcomes were analysed as a secondary endpoint. This study demonstrated a significant reduction in lung cancer mortality in the screening group (156 vs. 206, HR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.61 - 0.94). The incidence of false positives in this study was low (n=264/22,600, 1.2%). In summary, two large randomised controlled trials have demonstrated that low-dose CT scans of the chest reduce lung-cancer related mortality in high-risk participants.

A review of evidence by public health experts has revealed significant issues with attendance and implementation of early detection programs internationally. Targets in the United Kingdom for Breast and Bowel screening can be as low as 70% and 50% respectively. Evidence from UK studies show that barriers to uptake in screening programmes include a perceived lack of access to screening programmes and, a fatalistic attitude to lung cancer screening in deprived communities(7). In the UKLS trial, McDonald et al noted that the likelihood of lung cancer risk increased with socioeconomic deprivation but conversely response rates and clinic attendance fell (8). Reducing barriers to participation is a critical challenge to the implementation of early detection of lung cancer.

Spirometry and Lung Health Questionnaire While the large scale US (NLST) and European trials (NELSON) have provided sufficient evidence to show clinical efficacy, poor uptake and economic costs of lung cancer screening have led to significant difficulties with implementation to date. Particular issues include encouraging high-risk participants from socio-economically deprived areas to participate. However, researchers and clinical implementation groups in the UK have been leading initiatives aimed at addressing these logistical and deliverability issues through the launching of numerous implementation pilot trials that have led to the creation of high quality, pragmatic and cost-effective programmes. These studies have invited more than 500,000 participants, scanned 120,000 (24%) participants and diagnosed 15,000 lung cancers since 2019. Their widespread success has led to a recommendation by the UK National Screening Committee (UKNSC) to introduce a national lung cancer screening programme in the UK in 2023.

A cornerstone of the UK approach is the implementation of community-based screening, which has been to significantly improve attendance in pilot studies. Location and access to a dedicated CT scanner is fundamental to the success of these programmes. Access to CT scanning in hospital-based settings is at a premium and in order to facilitate high-volume scanning in participants to be assessed, access to a dedicated screening specific CT scanner is required. The seminal example of a successful UK based pilot 15 that has driven much of the further developments in national community based testing has been The Manchester Lung Health Check (LHC) pilot. This involved a community initiative which invited participants via their primary care team(9). The pilot programme invited participants aged 55-74 years, whom were ever smokers and were living in defined catchment areas of socioeconomic disadvantage. This study also used a validated lung cancer risk prediction model - PLCO2012(10). This prediction model incorporated clinical factors such as age, smoking history, pulmonary disease, family history etc. To be eligible for inclusion, participants needed to have a predicted risk of lung cancer >1.51%. Critically, the programme involved a community engagement initiative whereby the research study team engaged with persons in community centres and local organisations in order to educate and enhance awareness of the proposed screening pilot. The pilot study demonstrated an uptake of 28.5 % with a total 2827 participants attending the pilot. Of these 2827 participants, 49% (1384/2827) were eligible for low dose CT (LDCT) and proceeded to screening. A total of 3% (n=42) lung cancers were detected in this screening programme. This evidence indicates that a service that could identify people at high risk of lung cancer and provide them with a LDCT scan, would lead to a reduction in deaths from lung cancer. In the Manchester screening trial, they performed a comparative analysis of the PLCO2012 and LLPv2. In this study, they discovered that the LLPv2 was more sensitive at identifying participants with lung cancer in a deprived population(10). For this reason, we will use both scoring models in our proposed study.

Another successful UK based lung cancer screening pilot, the Yorkshire Lung Screening Trial (YLST) involved randomisation of eligible participants aged 55-80 to telephone based lung cancer risk assessment versus usual care(11) . In this study, a total of 44,393 participants were invited with an initial response rate of 50.8%. Amongst the respondents, 34.4% of participants were eligible and 86.8% of those underwent screening (n=6819). In this study, authors used a remote lung cancer risk assessment (telephone based). They demonstrated that telephone based risk assessment is a feasible strategy for a lung cancer screening pilot.