France's influential union of private radiologists (Fédération Nationale des Médecins Radiologues, FNMR) has strongly urged the government to allow CT lung cancer screening studies in two French regions.
The move comes in the wake of positive results from the Dutch-Belgian Randomized Lung Cancer Screening (NELSON) trial. The study revealed a 25% reduction in mortality in a cohort screened with low-dose CT, according to a paper published on 29 January in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The FNMR has lobbied the French parliament to begin trials in lung cancer screening, but no amendment to current screening regulations has, as yet, been made. In a new statement, the radiology union noted that to avoid such a study will negatively affect thousands of patients, and it called on the country's public health authorities to collaborate with the FNMR in establishing a screening program.
