Sebastian Schmidt: Lung cancer screening with low-dose CT in France

Sebastian Schmidt shared a post on LinkedIn:

”Lung cancer screening with low-dose CT in France.

Few days ago, the National Cancer Institute of France published their recommendations on lung cancer screening in France.

This is an important step in a longer journey – France had a lot of back-and-forth on the topic. Below is an overview of the history – the negative statements from the HAS in 2016 and the National Academy in 2021 (!) were setbacks, set are now hopefully and finally history.

The better that there is now strong progress. The nation-wide pilot is supposed to start next year, which puts France ahead of other Western European countries. The recommendations will guide implementation.

My takeaways from the recommendations:

• Overall very positive: It’s all about the ‘HOW’, no doubt that it makes sense to screen. The number of averted deaths is estimated above 10.000 in five years, giving a clear argument.
• Clear recommendations of reporting of incidental findings – this is good, as this is a question that many radiologists ask, and clear guidelines are missing in other countries.
• Reasonable dose levels: 0.4 mGy below 50 Kg body weight, 0.8 mGy between 50 and 80, 1.6 mGY above 80 (all CTDI). What’s missing are more clear technical standards how to achieve this.
• Improvement potential I would see in the parts about recruitment of participants – this is the most critical point, as we know from other countries and deserves strong attention. A look to UK may be helpful, they are leading this in my perception.

Overall, an excellent starting point, and congratulations to the advisors: Sébastien Couraud, Hilary Robbins, Olivier Leleu, Revel Marie Pierre, Xiaoshuang Feng, to name only a few of the many. From reading the report it became clear that this is written by real experts in the field.

One fun fact: I used an AI translation of the report, which was overall reasonable, only Olivier Leleu’s title was translated as ‘service cook’ – this confirms the content: AI is great, but needs human supervision.”

Source: Sebastian Schmidt/LinkedIn

Sebastian Schmidt is the Head of Strategy, Innovation, and Medical Affairs in the Computed Tomography Business Line at Siemens Healthineers. He is dedicated to implementing global low-dose CT lung cancer screening to benefit patients.