Screening for all

Lung Cancer

Lung Cancer Lung cancer is the largest cause of cancer deaths. Lung cancer is a silent killer. it often goes unnoticed until it reaches advanced – and incurable – stages. Lung cancer accounted for 4.5 % of all deaths in the EU and for around one fifth (19.8 %) of all cancer-related deaths in the EU in 2020. Late-stage cancers have poor survival rates.

Yet, shifting the cancer stage from late to early saves lives. Saves extensive, expensive cancer treatments. And, 4 out of 5 early caught cancers are cured.

Lung Cancer Screening

Scientific evidence strongly supports that early detection of lung cancer significantly extends and saves lives. Rigorous clinical studies in the US and EU confirm the benefits: screening works. Detecting cancer in its early stages not only saves lives but also reduces the need for extensive and costly treatments. Screening millions of people can reveal whether their lungs are cancer-free.

However, less than 5% of eligible citizens in the USA are currently screened for lung cancer. Globally, millions miss the opportunity for early tumor detection due to lack of screening. AI can revolutionize this process by efficiently reading images at scale, making screening accessible to everyone and catching cancers early.

Radiologist Capacity

The radiologists community worldwide (350,000) are at their limits of taking care of the existing workload (which largely excludes any screening volume!)

50% of US radiologists report burnout in recent survey

The United States speaks of a shortage of over 15,000 radiologists in the coming years - that is only to perform diagnostic and interventional tasks, not screening images.

In a screened population: prevalence of disease is below <10%. Humanly speaking: to review 9 out of ten cases that are negative in and of itself may lead to interpretation errors.

Due to the capacity limitations, waiting lists for patients to get scanned of 3 - 6 months are the norm.

And yes, AI is already in use. But: Those radiologists using CAD, use it for support and verification of their readings, not for their replacement. That does not solve the existing (and growing) capacity problem.

It needs reading capacity to create broad-scale screening. This is made possible by AI-based tools.

Only AI can perform the image reading on large scale and thus make screening accessible for each and everyone. And catch early cancers. And this is where PRMSE: comes into the game.

Science of screening

The scientific evidence for screening as a life-saving and life-extending process is large.

It has been consistently proven, that early lung cancer screening provides the opportunity to detect lung cancer in a stage where treatment and cure is still an option.

If detection of lung cancer happens in an early stage, the survival rate increases drastically up to 70 or even 90%.

For that reason at least the high risk population if not everybody is supposed to present for screening in order to ensure that no cancer develops.

Screening for lung cancer means looking for signs of cancer in your lungs before you have symptoms.

PRMSE: AI Lung Cancer Screening

Reading images takes a lot of radiologist’s capacity and it takes significant effort to arrive at the right diagnosis.

Not only does it cost lives once the opportunity of early screening is being missed, it also causes a huge impact on the health system based on the fact that lung cancer is so very widespread all over the globe.

Early screening and early detection of lung cancer has a huge beneficial impact and should be imperative to do it on large scale and make it accessible to everyone.

And this is where PRMSE: comes in.

Based on thousands of images the artifical intelligence will interpret new images with the same accuracy as a radiologist. This procedure of ruling out negative cases will take just a few seconds and thus provide the basis for broad-scale screening programs.

Thanks to AI, the target population of screening is offered the probability of early detection of lung cancer. Without such tools, that chance is not present.

The Potential of Screening

To the left: The left-most diagram the actual depiction of the United States situation today. Around 8M Americans at higher risk for lung cancer (over 50 years old and over 20 pack years of cigarette smoking) should be screened annually. Only around 2% of them are actually screened.

The right diagram: With the presence of automated analysis, assumed these 8M are screened, a total number of 48,000 lives could be saved! That is the contribution of AI: filling the gap of the absent reader capacity by the existent radiology community. 

Our Societal Project in Africa

Screening for All and thus tackling lung cancer is our vision.

For that reason at least the high risk population if not everybody is supposed to present for screening in order to ensure that no cancer develops.

It is our mission to enable this for each and everyone on the globe by providing PRMSE: as an integral part of large-scale screening programs in selected countries of Africa.

We are engaging with cancer societies on country level, namely the Mathiwos Wondu-YeEthiopia Cancer Society (MWECS) in Ethiopia, public health and university hospitals in Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya, initially. 

Together with NGO's we intend to set up a holistic program that also covers the crucial part of smoking prevention which is still the major even though not being the only reason for lung cancer. Smoking prevalence rates are still highest in the most deprived areas and in order to tackle lung cancer smoking prevention by informing and empowering - in particular young people -  through raising awareness is crucial.

Wondu Bekele

CEO Mathiwos, MWECS, Ethiopia Cancer Society. 

Lawrence Atundo Murunga

Program Manager MTRH - AMPATH Oncology, Multinational Lung Cancer Control Program

From Vision to Impact

Our stated goal is to create the equal opportunity for everyone to be screened early for potential detection of early-stage lung cancer.

We are in the process of realizing this vision through a simple and reliable process - identification of at risk patients and the application of low dose CT scan combined with the automated PRMSE: analysis of the images.

This is the only way to ensure that all potentially affected people are aware of their health situation and, if necessary, are treated for a cure.

Taking into account the actual situation of radiologists being beyond their limits, this remains the only option or - no screening at all.