A semi-trailer will be converted into the world’s first mobile lung cancer screening facility to help boost early detection and increase survival rates in rural and remote Queensland where access to specialists is limited.

The truck will be fitted with the latest technology, integrating imaging, breath and blood biomarker screening, as part of a $2 million Australian Cancer Research Foundation (ACRF) grant.

According to the researchers at University of Queensland (UQ), lung cancer has high potential for cure, at 67 per cent, if detected early.

The ACRF Lung Cancer Screening Centre of Excellence (LUSCE) mobile facility, as it’s known, will target Australians living in rural, remote and Indigenous communities with limited access to lung cancer screening facilities.

The ACRF LUSCE mobile facility will help increase early lung cancer detection at a stage when a cure is possible, the researchers said.

The ACRF LUSCE mobile facility is expected to begin its maiden journey across Queensland in mid-late 2022.