New mobile lung screening app developed at the UP

Where did the idea to create a mobile app related to lung cancer come from?

Only 10-15% of the lung cancer patients can be operated,  for the rest of them it is too late, they already appear at an advanced stage. Only those have a chance for survival who can be operated, operálhatóak, we  are able to"rescue" them from the disease through endoscopic procedure accompanied by a hospital stay for a few days or weeks.

Lung cancer is a leading cause of death in Hungary, with 128 cases per 1000 inhabitants. For some reason, the Hungarian lung is frail – there are other countries where they  smoke more, but they still have less cases. In addition, another feature of it is that it is highly fatal: for example breast cancer is also quite common, but the probability of recovery is 90%. For advanced lung cancer, the chance of a 5 year survival is 5%. If the disease is diagnosed in time, then it is 90% - the difference is huge!

Why do the patients appear so late?

Lung cancer causes symptoms very late, and if you already have someone in pain or spitting blood, then the disease is already advanced. We can usually save those who have a positive result in some kind of screening or they suspect the disease for other reasons, it is discovered accidentally, lfor example during a CT scan performed for low back pain the developing tumor is detected.

Why did you choose a mobile app for it?

31 March this year, the organised lung screening was terminated in Hungary, the must of going to a screening by themselves will not come into the mind of people. I thought  we should somehow address them, reach them, namely throuh a fast and possibly free channel. I heard on the radio that there are more than 4 milliion smart phones in Hungary, then the news was also about an application with helps you in finding lost dogs. For the first time I was just smiling at this, and then I thought it might be used for finding early-stage lung canncer patients. We examined what algorithms can help in a questionnaire-like way to select those who are most endangered.

What does this application know at the moment?

We developed it for Android and iOS, the app itself is free and anonymous. A short questionnaire can evaluate it out how endangered people are, the application can even predict the expected status for 10 or 20 years. Let’s say that a twenty-year-old can seeto which  risk group he or she  will belong – this can be quite a shock for them.

The program savest he  location of the information based on the cellular informations, thus it offers at the end the address of the nearest screening center. The geopositioning will also help in launching public health programs, in the most affected, most endangered regions. We can acquire such data through the theapplication,  which previously was possible, or would have taken years to collect the information.

I should add that the earlier X-ray screening did not detect the tumor, because the CT scan can show it sercurly. However, CT is expensive, so it would be advisable to screen only those who truly belong to the risk group. If we survey patients on paper, it costs $ 130 / person, CT alone is $ 40 / person, so if many people use this application, the costs can be reduced to a quarter.

If I know it right, you launched a campaign with a  sweepstakes…

We managed to obtain sponsors, who volunteered to support the initiative, this way we were able to start this campaign. Within a few days the  app is ranked 16th among the Health & Fitness applications. I hope that it will also have a health educational role, and the younger generation will assess the status of older people as well.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=hu.markcon.lungtumourfilter 

iOS: https://itunes.apple.com/US/app/id916253302