Breast screen success rate unknown until 2010

THE success of the breast screening programme won’t be known until 2010, but early indications are that it is improving the survival rate of hundreds of women with the disease.

Clinical director of the €5 million BreastCheck Merrion Unit on the campus of St Vincent’s University Hospital in Dublin, Dr Ann O’Doherty, said it would take 10 years before they could prove the programme was effective at reducing the death rate.

“We don’t know what causes cancer and we don’t have a cure but we do know that early detection affords women the best possible hope for survival,” she said.