How can we increase the number of participants in lung cancer screening?

Recently, the number of participants in lung cancer screening has been decreasing in Okayama Prefecture, which may lower the screening effects to improve lung cancer mortality and as a result many municipalities may stop lung cancer screening in the near future. In Japan, lung cancer screening has already been abandoned in 109 (5%) municipalities, since they considered that the effectiveness of lung cancer screening was inferior to that of screening programs for other cancers. In this report, we discussed the following issues in lung cancer screening today by analyzing questionnaires for bureaucrat responsible for lung cancer screening. Due to their insufficient knowledge about lung cancer, up-to-date information or cumulative knowledge was not efficiently used in screening. Though the bureaucrat understood the importance of quality control of screening, quality control was not included in the specification form for public bidding for selecting the screening agency. It was surprising that some officers understood neither the difference between tuberculosis screening and lung cancer screening nor the purpose of screening. These results indicate that these officers failed to explain the necessity of lung cancer screening for the community and emphasize the usefulness of selecting the appropriate agency with high accuracy for the financial manager. In conclusion, the bureaucrat responsible for lung cancer screening have to understand "cancer screening with high quality" in the nation's statement, and give equal opportunities for lung cancer screening to the community. The screening agency has the responsibility to increase the number of participation of individuals in lung cancer screening.