A prevalence of lung cancer in the western region has drawn an international trial to Dubbo.
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The International Lung Screen Trial aims to discover "which people in Australia will benefit most" from having low-dose CT scans which can detect early stage lung cancer before it spreads and becomes difficult to cure.
Smokers and ex-smokers in "good general health" and aged 55 to 80 years, are currently the target of the trial.
After filling out a questionnaire which calculates their risk of having lung cancer, selected participants are scanned.
If need be, curative surgery is provided by cardiothoracic surgeons in metropolitan cities including Sydney.
Doctors from St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney and Dubbo Hospital are working together on the trial.
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"St Vincent's has already scanned over 200 people from around Sydney and NSW who have travelled to the city for their scans and successful surgery has been performed to cure lung cancer in study patients," a spokeswoman for the Western NSW Local Health District said.
"From now, scans can be done in Dubbo as part of the study, without the need to travel all the way to central Sydney."
Senior respiratory physician at Dubbo Hospital, Dr Sugamya Mallawathantri, is working directly with respiratory physician at St Vincent's Hospital Dr Emily Stone on the trial running in Australia and Canada.
This week Dr Mallawathantri confirmed that Dubbo was the first regional centre in NSW to be included in the trial for reasons including the health district's "higher smoking incidence and lung cancer incidence compared to metropolitan areas".
"Lung cancer incidence and outcomes in Bathurst and Orange are on par with the Australian average," she said.
"But when you move more towards Dubbo and the far north west, the incidence gets worse. "It's about 20 to 30 times higher ...and the death rate in the five-year survival period is also worse."
Dr Stone outlined the goals of the trial.
"The more immediate goal of this study is to help define or determine which people in Australia will benefit most from CT screening for lung cancer," she said.
"The big thing that we would like to see out of this trial is that ultimately it helps us persuade the government to set up a screening program for lung cancer in people who are at risk."
Dr Stone said "we can't and should not do CT scans for everybody" as the test could prove unnecessary, stressful for the patient and costly for the taxpayer.
To register for the trial go to https://www.svhs.org.au/research-education/participating-in-research-trials/early-screening-for-lung-cancer or call 9355 5689.