Dr. McWilliams Discusses the PanCan Nodule Management Protocol for Lung Cancer Screening

Annette McWilliams, MBBS, FRACP, PhD, of the Fiona Stanely Hospital and The University of Western Australia, joined Lung Cancers Today at the IASLC 2024 World Conference on Lung Cancer to discuss her presentation on lung cancer screening during the IASLC Presidential Symposium.

The plenary presentation, titled “Triaging ILST Screening Participants at Program Entry: Comparative Performance of PanCan versus LungRADSv1.1 Protocol,” focused on the prospective validation of the PanCan nodule risk calculator and compared its performance with the LungRADSv1.1 protocol.

Dr. McWilliams explained that nodules are “very commonly” found on computerized tomography (CT) scan, but the “best management program varies.”

“What we’ve shown using this PanCan nodule management protocol is that it’s highly effective at triaging people at screening entry into a low-risk category or a high-risk category and actually performs better than the LungRADS categories,” she explained.

The PanCan approach has significant clinical and logistical implications for lung cancer screening, Dr. McWilliams said.

“It enables about 75% of screening participants to be safely rescreened in 2 years rather than 1 year, thereby reducing the number of CT scans that the participants may need to have,” she said, which can “subsequently reduce resource utilization and cost” associated with lung cancer screening.

In addition, the study showed that the PanCan approach was “better at triaging people to a high-risk category,” Dr. McWilliams said.

There are plans to use the PanCan nodule management protocol around the world, with the protocol already implemented in British Columbia, Canada.

“It is also being proposed it’s going to be used in Australia’s program, which is starting next year in July 2025,” Dr. McWilliams said. “We’ll also be using this PanCan nodule risk score at baseline for screening entry for our participants and it will enable us to have a biennial program, rather than annual program.