IMPULSION (national lung cancer screening pilot)

INCa launched a call for a lung cancer screening pilot in January 2025 and chose IMPULSION, coordinated by Professor Marie-Pierre Revel of the Paris public hospitals and Professor Sébastien Couraud of the Hospices Civils de Lyon. INCa's Panorama 2026 says the health minister announced the opening of inclusions in May 2026, in five pilot regions (Île-de-France, Hauts-de-France, Pays de la Loire, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes), with 29 partner structures, 5 to 15 approved radiology centres per region, 6 million euros from INCa, and the scans covered in full by the national health insurance. Participants have two scans a year apart and then one every two years.

The ClinicalTrials.gov record, sponsored by the Paris public hospitals, gives an actual start date of 11 May 2026, an estimated 20,000 participants, a non-randomised single-group design and the detection rate of lung cancer as the primary objective. The pilot is meant to work out how to organise screening in each region, with particular attention to people in precarious circumstances, before a national programme, which INCa's 2026 to 2030 roadmap aims to generalise by 2030.