Leeds Lung Health Check content
The Leeds Lung Health Check is a major charity research project, an £8 million investment in a mobile screening unit which travels the city providing convenient lung check-ups for local residents. Smokers and former smokers are invited for chest scans, primarily looking for signs of early stage lung cancer, but also discovering other cancers such as breast, kidney and oesophageal.
Because these cancers are caught earlier than would otherwise be the case – often before any symptoms are experienced - the likelihood of successful treatment and recovery is greatly increased. The project has helped inspire and inform the NHS to a £70 million investment in 10 additional mobile scanning units across England, three of which will be in Yorkshire, bringing the benefits of lung screening to people in Hull, Doncaster and Kirklees.
From June 2021, individuals returning for their second lung scan will be offered the option of extending the scan to the lower abdominal region to check for kidney cancer. This additional research project, a world-first, is led by Professor Grant Stewart, University of Cambridge.
15,000 lung scans
have taken place on the mobile units
Over 340 lung cancers
have been diagnosed since launching in November 2018
To contact Leeds Lung Health Check
For more information visit their website or call their advice line on 0113 392 6688.
Leeds Lung Health Check leads to life-saving national programme
During the past four years, thousands of people living in the city have taken part in the Leeds Lung Health Check, which offers scans to those at highest risk of lung cancer. Now the findings gathered as part of this huge clinical trial have contributed to the evidence needed to bring lung screening to people living across the whole country.
Why is this study needed?
When cancer is diagnosed early, it's easier to treat. While screening programmes are available for breast, cervical and bowel cancer, there is no national screening for lung cancer. This is the biggest cause of premature death in Yorkshire and it is vital to fund studies like this one to save lives in our region. The screening CT scan used by the Leeds Lung Health Check can detect lung cancer before the participant even knows it is there.
This pioneering study will evaluate a community-based screening programme to assess the overall effect of screening across the population. Leeds Lung Health Check is the largest lung screening study in the UK and the outcomes regionally will then benefit patients nationally. Evidence from the US shows that eight in ten patients diagnosed with lung cancer by screening will be alive ten years after diagnosis, compared to just one in ten for people currently diagnosed in the UK.
Dorothy's experience
Researchers
Prof Matt Callister
University of Leeds
Every 17 minutes someone is diagnosed with cancer in Yorkshire
Our aim is for more people to survive cancer, here in Yorkshire and beyond.
Please help us continue to fund life-saving research.
Quote from Lynne
The money that everybody donates that goes into programmes like this, it’s absolutely amazing, it saved my life.”
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