This paper addresses the issue of limited access to lung cancer screening in Poland. The author notes that lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the country, and that it is most often asymptomatic in its early stages. The consequences are both health-related and financial: without changes to preventive care, expenditures by the public payer could reach nearly PLN 11.56 billion by 2040. Residents of rural areas and smaller towns, the elderly, and individuals with lower socioeconomic status face transportation barriers that effectively exclude them from preventive screening.
The primary recommendation presented in this policy brief is to supplement the Lung Cancer Screening Program—set to launch in October 2026—with a nationwide network of sixteen "mobile low-dose computed tomography (LDCT) centers" (one mobile unit per voivodeship), operating on a model similar to that of mobile mammography units. The author proposes a four-phase implementation plan: the development of a specific "mobile" reimbursement tariff by the Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Reimbursement (AOTMiT) and the National Health Fund (NFZ) that accounts for logistical costs; the procurement and certification of a fleet, alongside staff training provided by the National Research Institute of Oncology; an operational launch in early 2028, prioritizing municipalities with the highest lung cancer mortality rates; and ongoing evaluation based on indicators such as population coverage, adherence, the duration of the patient pathway, and shifts in the stage at which cancer is detected.
Paulina is a sociology student within the Interdisciplinary Individual Studies in the Humanities (MISH) program at the University of Warsaw. She also serves as the President of the Board of the Akcja Menstruacja Foundation. The work was supervised by Prof. Paweł Koczkodaj, a professor at the Maria Skłodowska-Curie National Research Institute of Oncology and author of a report for the Polish Oncological Society.
The text of the article is available on the Polityka Zdrowotna portal. The full report, which includes a detailed analysis of the proposal presented, will be published on our website soon.
This work was produced as part of the "Young Think Policy Briefs – Health" program.