In Luxembourg, lung cancer accounts for 22% of all cancer deaths. The National Cancer Registry (RNC) has now published its first report assessing the quality of care provided to lung cancer patients in the country.

For several years, Luxembourg has been developing concrete actions within the framework of the National Cancer Plan to improve the quality of care provided to cancer patients. In this context, the RNC has been specifically developed to allow for quality assessment.

The newly published report, composed of a scientific and a technical document, compiles results from RNC data collected between 2013 and 2014. It presents the main characteristics of lung cancer patients in Luxembourg and draws up a list of 24 quality of care indicators to evaluate the diagnosis and treatment of patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSCLC).

“Following a benchmarking approach with literature data, it appears that Luxembourg is well positioned for the treatment and outcome of NSCLC”, states Dr Sophie Couffignal, epidemiologist at LIH’s Department of Population Health in charge of the RNC.

On the basis of the report, the National Cancer Institute may specify areas for improvement for the treatment of this cancer type. Quality of care indicators for patients with NSCLC will be regularly analysed by the RNC to monitor the evolution of clinical practices and the level of implementation of national recommendations.

The evaluation of the follow-up of patients with Small Cell Lung Cancer (SCLC) will be carried out at a later stage, as the number of cases managed in Luxembourg over the two-year period was too low to obtain relevant results.