(AFP) – A crucial step towards organized lung cancer screening in France: a pilot program, targeting certain smokers and former smokers, will be deployed by the end of the year, the National Institute of the National Institute announced on Thursday cancer.
Causal in about eight in ten cases by tobacco, this cancer marked by abnormal and uncontrolled growth of cells in the lungs remains the most fatal malignant tumor in France, with 30,400 deaths each year.
If the number of new cases stabilizes in men, it progresses strongly in women, who later started smoking. At home, the number of deaths by lung cancer could exceed this year that of breast cancer dead.
As the symptoms of lung cancer are long to appear, the majority of diagnoses are made at a too late stage, complicating treatments and dropping the chances of survival.
“The interest of screening is major for public health,” said Professor Norbert Ifrah, president of the Inca, at a press conference.
The pilot program will include 20,000 participants, people aged 50 to 74, smokers and ex-smokers weaned for less than 15 years with cumulative smoking consumption of at least 20 packages per year.
They will be called upon to make two low -dose chest scanners one year apart, then every two years, and will also be offered smoking cessation.
“We hope that the first scanners will be made at the beginning of the second half of 2025,” said Professor.
Convinced that “a certain number of people wishing to be tested are in the starting blocks”, the president of the Inca added that general practitioners, midwives, nurses in advanced practice, pharmacists, pulmonologists, tobaccoologists, addictologists or Oncologists will be able to orient patients to centers associated with the device.
Region by region, the organization will be declined with regional health agencies.
– “Before 2030” –
The results of the pilot study “will condition the generalization of organized screening”, noted the president of the Inca, according to which “we can reasonably hope for a generalization even before the 2030”.
-In France, three cancers (breast, colorectal, cervix) are the subject of organized screening, systematically proposed to a target population. For lung cancer, the main brake of health authorities has long been a risk of “overdiagnosis” of tumors that would not evolve in cancer.
Then several studies have shown the benefits of organized lung cancer screening: a low -dose scanner in people at risk can detect small beginning tumors early and reduce the risk of death by around 20 to 25%.
In 2022, the High Authority for Health therefore recommended “the implementation of real -life experiments before considering the deployment of a broad -scale screening program”.
Appointed impetus, the pilot project selected is carried out by a consortium coordinated by the PR Marie -Pierre Revel (Public Assistance – Hospitals of Paris) and Sébastien Couraud (Civil Hospices in Lyon).
The objective is to determine the most effective and most sure methods of a chest scanner screening: duration, frequency, role of artificial intelligence, economic impact, impact on the supply of care, etc., according to the president of the Inca.
The Inca will finance up to 6 million euros, “colossal” amount according to its president, and health insurance will in particular take charge 100% scanners.
“Each year, we let a number of people die by not setting up this national screening”, had judged the director general of the Gustave Roussy Institute, Fabrice Barlesi, Wednesday during a press conference, while recognizing that “you have to organize it”.
Abroad, only the United States has already generalized screening for lung cancer “in the mind” but it is “paying”, which restricts participation, according to the President of the Inca.
Other countries work there, such as Australia, which must start in July, or states of central and eastern Europe.
In addition to tobacco -“an absolute enemy” according to the president of the incy-, other exhibitions are recognized as carcinogenic for the lungs (asbestos, exhaust gas of diesel engines, radon, certain hydrocarbons, certain ionizing radiation … ).
