Speed up rollout of breast screening, urges cancer society

CANCER campaigners have called on the Government to speed up the countrywide extension of the BreastCheck breast cancer screening service and to include older women in the programme.

The Irish Cancer Society welcomed last week’s announcement of a further €20 million to bring BreastCheck to all parts of the country by 2008 but it said this was three years later than planned and urged the Government to stick to the original time frame of 2005.

The society also called for the screening age to be extended beyond the 50-64 years category to include women up to the age of 70, in recognition of the increased chances older women have of developing the disease.