ESR and ERS Launch European Lung Cancer Screening Alliance

The European Society of Radiology (ESR) and the European Respiratory Society (ERS) jointly launched the European Lung Cancer Screening Alliance (ELCSA) at the European Cancer Screening and Early Detection Policy Summit in Brussels in February 2026, creating a new long-term initiative to support the roll-out of lung cancer screening programmes across Europe.

ELCSA's mission is to support the implementation of evidence-based, low-dose CT screening at national and European levels, building on the work of the SOLACE project, which screened more than 30,000 people across eleven European pilot countries during its three-year programme. Helmut Prosch from the Medical University of Vienna has been named as the ESR's ELCSA co-chair for the first three-year term.

The alliance brings together expertise across radiology, pulmonology, oncology, surgery and public health, and will focus on education, sharing of best practice, research to improve risk selection and screening quality, and policy advocacy at EU and national level. A stakeholder forum will provide broad engagement with the clinical and patient communities.

The summit where ELCSA was launched was jointly convened by the EU-funded PRAISE-U, SOLACE and TOGAS projects, which have piloted national screening programmes for prostate, lung and gastric cancers under Europe's Beating Cancer Plan. Details are available on the ESR website.