# Lung cancer screening programme in Croatia

Source: https://onco.cc/terms/screening-hr-lung/  
OnCo record `screening-hr-lung` (Term). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Croatia runs a national, fully reimbursed lung cancer screening programme with low-dose CT, in which family doctors refer people at high risk; more than 50,000 people were screened from October 2020 to August 2025.

## Summary

Croatia's Ministry of Health set up a Lung Cancer Screening Working Group to design a national programme, described by its authors as the first national lung cancer screening programme in the European Union. It uses low-dose CT, modified International Early Lung Cancer Action Program (I-ELCAP) criteria for nodule management, volumetric analysis assessed by artificial intelligence, full digitalisation and smoking cessation, and is fully reimbursed; general practitioners identify and refer people at high risk. From October 2020 to August 2025 more than 50,000 participants were screened with more than 70,000 scans; 54% were men, the average age was 62, and 4.5% had positive results needing follow-up (Samaržija et al., European Radiology 2026). A cross-country review of ten European countries published the same year named Croatia, Poland and England as the only three with a formal lung cancer screening programme (Poon et al., Frontiers in Public Health 2026).

## Fields

- Kind: Term
- Last checked: 2026-11-04
- Also known as: Croatian National Lung Cancer Screening Program; Croatia: national lung cancer screening programme
- Tags: screening-programme

## Sources

- Samaržija et al., European Radiology 2026 (the Croatian model): https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-025-12185-w
- Poon et al., Frontiers in Public Health 2026 (lung screening in Europe): https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2026.1766560

## Connected records

- terms: [National cancer screening programmes](https://onco.cc/terms/national-screening-programmes/), [Screening](https://onco.cc/terms/screening/)
- cancers: [Lung cancer (all types)](https://onco.cc/cancers/lung-cancer/)
- fronts: [Early Detection & Screening](https://onco.cc/fronts/early-detection/)
- technologies: [Low-dose CT lung screening](https://onco.cc/technologies/low-dose-ct-screening/)

---
JSON: https://onco.cc/api/v1/entities/screening-hr-lung.json