The Australian government has put up $6.9 million to begin the early scoping of a national lung cancer screening program, including money to look into the ICT requirements of a potential national program.

The announcement follows an enquiry held last year into the potential for such a targeted, risk-based screening program, which estimated that in the first 10 years, around 70 per cent of lung cancers would be diagnosed at an early stage, over 12,000 deaths would be prevented that such a program would reduce lung cancer mortality in Australia by 20 per cent in the screened population.