Extend breast screen age ‘to save 87 lives a year’

Extending breast screening to older women — a Government promise made three years ago — could save 87 lives every year, according to the Irish Cancer Society.

The society is urging women to wear pink and join them at the gates of Leinster House in Dublin later this month to demand the extension of BreastCheck to women aged 65 to 69.

The ICS has a petition for the Government calling on the minister for health, Leo Varadkar, to include the screening extension in the HSE’s National Services Plan for 2015.