The National Lung Cancer Audit (NLCA), part of the National Cancer Audit Collaborating Centre (NATCAN), has published an audit of care received by people diagnosed with lung cancer in 2024 in England and Wales. It found a continued increase in the number of stage 1 and 2 tumours among those diagnosed with lung cancer, with a corresponding increase in the number of individuals having resection surgery. The Lung Cancer Screening programme will have been a major reason behind these changes; however, its impact has yet to translate into lower rates of diagnosis after an emergency presentation.
Indicator values for NHS organisations can be found on NCLA’s online data dashboard, in conjunction with this report
Other key findings include the fact that times to treatment remains an issue, although there was a slight improvement compared with the results in last year’s report. Also, delivery of systemic anti-cancer therapy (SACT) across England and Wales remains below the standards set by the NLCA in 2017. This suggests that the growing demand for systemic treatment is outpacing service provision.
This report also includes five recommendations for improvement:
- Identify barriers preventing curative intent treatments for patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC) stage 3A (performance status 0-2)
- Review the care pathway for opportunities to increase the proportion of patients with advanced NSCLC (performance status 0-1) who receive SACT
- Ensure providers have sufficient thoracic surgery capacity to accommodate the growth in demand among NSCLC patients who are candidates for curative surgery
- Ensure measures to remove causes of avoidable delay are prioritised for patients to start SACT
- Ensure people diagnosed with stage 1 – 3 cancer are recommended regular aerobic and resistance exercise during treatment with curative intent.
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