The World Cancer Congress today highlighted new evidence on lung cancer screening from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC/WHO), implementation lessons from Australia, and patient insights.
IARC’s first comprehensive international evaluation of the evidence on lung cancer screening was presented today during the official World Cancer Congress press conference, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The World Cancer Congress 2026 is convened by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and hosted by the Hong Kong Anti-Cancer Society (HKACS).
While tobacco consumption and environmental factors such as air pollution drive lung cancer incidence, it remains the leading cause of cancer death (WHO/IARC), in large part due to late-stage diagnosis. Effective screening would enable detecting the disease earlier, when it can be treated more successfully.
Drawing together the global body of evidence from major international trials and real-world implementation studies, the IARC working group concluded that screening people at high risk using low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) reduces lung cancer mortality and the incidence of advanced-stage disease.
“These findings provide an important evidence base for countries considering how lung cancer screening may fit within their own health systems. We reviewed not only mortality reduction, but also implementation, participation, smoking cessation, artificial intelligence, and emerging technologies, providing a much clearer understanding of who benefits most, how programmes can be delivered, and how screening can be combined with smoking cessation and other interventions to maximise public health impact,” said Béatrice Lauby-Secretan, Head, IARC Handbooks of Cancer Prevention Programme, and co-author of “IARC Perspective on Lung Cancer Screening”, in New England Journal of Medicine.
The review also examined potential harms, including false-positive results, overdiagnosis and radiation exposure, and assessed the growing evidence on risk-prediction models, artificial intelligence, smoking-cessation interventions, and other approaches designed to improve the effectiveness and reach of screening programmes.
The findings were presented alongside updates from Australia’s National Lung Cancer Screening Program, launched in 2025, which is among the first targeted national screening programmes to be implemented following the publication of the major international trials that established the effectiveness of LDCT screening. Speakers highlighted the importance of equitable access to screening, particularly for populations traditionally underserved by health systems
“Australia’s experience shows that the challenge is how to build programmes that people can access, trust, and use, particularly in communities that have traditionally been underserved by healthcare systems. Reaching the people most at risk requires deliberate effort, strong local partnerships and an unwavering focus on equity,” said Prof. Dorothy Keefe, CEO of Cancer Coucil Australia, a UICC member.
Also at the official press conference, Rasika Bombatkar, a lung cancer survivor and advocate from India, spoke about her experience being diagnosed with the disease at the age of 26. Her experience highlighted the importance of symptom awareness and timely diagnosis, and challenges assumptions about who is at risk of developing lung cancer, particularly among younger adults and people without a significant smoking history.
“I was diagnosed with lung cancer at 26, an age when neither I nor the people treating me initially considered lung cancer a likely diagnosis. Screening can save lives, but it would not have helped someone like me. That is why awareness, listening to patients, and challenging assumptions about who is at risk remain just as important as advances in technology, ” said Rasika Bombatkar, Director, Lead Research at the Lung Connect India Foundation.
