Radon RESEARCH Series
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Developing tools to assess lifetime radon exposure for more inclusive lung cancer screening
Lung cancer screening is an important tool for improving health outcomes , as it enables earlier cancer diagnosis and therefore more effective treatment that can substantially prolong life , or even be curative .
While historically , this has been available for breast , prostate and colorectal cancers , only recently has the technology , health system funding , approvals , and infrastructure come together to enable lung cancer screening to be piloted in Canada . However , while lung cancer screening programs are being made available in some provinces , only people with a significant history of tobacco use will be eligible , excluding light- and never-smokers based on insufficient evidence of PERSONAL lung cancer risk to warrant inclusion . An outcome from a standard , high radon test is not , at this time , going to confer lung cancer screening eligibility , and this is an acknowledged health ( in ) equity concern .
New technological approaches to determining lifetime radon exposure are required to establish personal risk ; this is being developed by a coalition of cancer researchers across Canada with $ 5.1M in funding from the Canadian Cancer Society . Over the next five years , this team will be recruiting thousands of Canadians willing to participate in research to examine tell-tale amounts of radon decay products in their toenails , exploring whether measurements of these signs of radon exposure could be used to meaningfully assess a person ’ s risk of lung cancer to the point that lung cancer screening is justified .
THIS WORK IS BEING FUNDED BY :