Australia's lung cancer community is celebrating the Morrison Government's promise to invest in plans for a potential national lung cancer screening program.
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But it says the $6.9 million being put towards it is relatively "modest", and national screening should be rolled out as soon as possible.
Research by Cancer Australia shows such a program would save an estimated more than 12,000 lives in a decade. More than 70 per cent of cancers screened and detected would be diagnosed at an early stage, opening up options for curative treatment.
Currently, less 20 per cent of lung cancers in Australia are detected at an early stage.
Lung Foundation of Australia chief executive Mark Brooke said lung cancer was the deadliest cancer in Australia for both men and women.
"The majority of patients are diagnosed as stage three and stage four, where optimal care pathways are very difficult," he said.
"Late diagnosis [equals a] poor prognosis.
"We want to get patients diagnosed with stage one and stage two through screening, where more options are available and curative intent is possible.
"We never thought we would say that with lung cancer."
The government committed $6.9 million in Tuesday's federal budget to go towards modelling for a national lung cancer screening program.
The funding would also go towards employing five more specialist lung cancer nurses across the country.
Mr Brooke said there were only about 15 of those nurses already employed in Australia for 13,000 diagnoses, whereas there were 450 breast cancer nurses for 19,000 diagnoses.
"That should get alarm bells [ringing]," he said.
"Our patients tell us that they go to have oncology appointments, so chemotherapy or radiotherapy, and they can instantly tell who's a lung cancer patient and who's a breast cancer or a prostate cancer patient.
"The pink-shirted McGrath nurses [are] looking after a cohort of patients, but no one is looking after the lung cancer patients.
"So [while federal Health] Minister [Greg] Hunt's announcement last night is warmly received, it's the first couple of kilometres in a marathon."
Following the budget announcement, the foundation was turning its attention to the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, when "anything short of funding in full for a national lung cancer screening program will disappoint".
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Canberra Hospital clinical educator Susana Lloyd hoped a national screening program would be rolled out soon.
In 2016 she had her lung cancer detected early because of the persistence of her general practitioner, who was concerned about early symptoms. Ms Lloyd was only 44 at the time, and didn't have a history of smoking.
"I have been lung cancer-free for five years now, and that's only because it was caught in the early stages," she said.
"It just shows what a scan can do if they can catch it at that early stage.
"I've got two [children] in high school now and one at the end of primary school, so I've managed to see all that progress.
"Without having been caught early, I could be missing all of that and not be there to support them."
Mr Brooke said lung cancer had been underfunded for a long time across healthcare delivery and research, and that was partly due to the stigma around it.
"Many Australians don't understand that a cancer diagnosis is devastating, regardless of ... how you got it," he said.
"So from our perspective, we are some way away from achieving equity for the lung cancer community, but credit where credit's due - Mr Hunt and his team have listened."
Mr Brooke said the budget announcement was a "modest first step", but "a first step nonetheless".
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