Lung cancer screening truck heads for remote mining towns in Western Australia

Overhead shot of the Telfer gold mine in Western Australia. The adjacent town where workers reside is the most remote in the state. Photo credit: NASA

Medical and Pharmaceutical

Lung cancer screening truck heads for remote mining towns in Western Australia

It is the first in the state to offer low-dose CT scans in isolated communities

Rowan Dunne

Published

21 hours ago

Residents of remote mining communities located several miles from Perth will soon have the opportunity to get themselves screened for the world’s deadliest cancer.

In July, a lung cancer screening truck will be making its way to isolated towns in Western Australia. The mobile unit, owned by the local company TiBi Healthcare, will make its first stops in the Pilbara region.

In addition to lung cancer, the low-dose CT scan machine installed inside a trailer aims to detect silicosis — a nasty condition caused by inhaling silica dust. Mining industry workers have a particularly high risk of getting this respiratory disease.

“I couldn’t be more proud of our amazing team in bringing this dream into a reality,” TiBi CEO Nell Gillett stated recently. She says the service is desperately needed.

Neil Foster, manager of the Siemens AG (OTCMKTS: SIEGY) (ETR: SIE) medical tech subsidiary Siemens Healthineers, believes it will be a game changer.

“The communities access to health care is very limited by distance, by time, and by their personal circumstances to travel to places like Perth,” Foster explained in an interview with The West Australian. He played an instrumental role in engineering the truck’s CT scanner set up.

“A lot of the infrastructure in those towns doesn’t have the capabilities that you have on this machine so to have an equivalent service, they might have to travel thousands of kilometres.”

Like other lung cancer screening programs throughout the globe, it will prioritize examining people between the ages of 50 and 70 with a history of cigarette consumption.

The truck’s launch in July coincides with the beginning of the nation’s first National Lung Cancer Screening Program. Its aim is to save 12,000 Australian lives by 2035.

The Australian government has budgeted AUD$264 million for the initiative over the next four years. Approximately 9,000 Aussie residents lose their battle with the deadly disease annually.