ALL PATIENTS with suspected lung cancer will be assessed in dedicated multidisciplinary clinics by the end of next year, Prof Tom Keane, the director of the national cancer control programme, has said.
The new lung cancer programme means patients with so-called sentinel symptoms, such as coughing up blood, will be referred directly to eight specialist centres in the Republic, where they will undergo quadruple assessment. The eight centres will be located in the same hospitals as the recently introduced dedicated breast cancer units. Patients will undergo a CT scan, lung function tests, bronchoscopy (the insertion of a flexible telescope into the lung) as well as a specialist assessment of biopsy samples.
Speaking at the Irish Thoracic Society (ITS) annual meeting in Belfast at the weekend, Prof Keane thanked respiratory specialists for their support in setting up the network of rapid access diagnostic clinics. He told The Irish Times it was unacceptable that some 40 per cent of people with lung cancer currently receive no treatment for the disease.
"The figure should be less than that. Access to diagnosis is the issue," he said, adding that in future a patient with possible lung cancer symptoms should be assessed by a multidisciplinary team including a lung specialist, a radiologist and a specialist pathologist. Dr JJ Gilmartin, president of the ITS, described lung cancer survival figures here as "very poor".
When diagnosed early, some cancers are amenable to surgical resection. Under the plan, lung cancer surgery will be carried out in four centres in the State. According to Prof Keane, resection rates are currently half of what they might be.
The latest report into cancer misdiagnosis in the Republic centred on delayed lung cancer diagnosis at the Louth/Meath group of hospitals. It said nine patients in the northeast had their diagnosis of lung cancer delayed by up to 14 months as a result of errors made by a radiologist. The report concluded the delayed diagnosis had shortened the lives of six of the nine patients.
Lung cancer has one of the worst prognosis of all human cancers. National Cancer Registry figures suggest just 8 per cent of people with the disease are alive five years after diagnosis. It is typically diagnosed late because the symptoms manifest themselves late in the illness. In addition, tumours appear as shadows on a chest X-ray and can be difficult to detect.