The absence of breast screening services in the western region is leading to a high number of mastectomies among women whose cancer is being detected too late and may be costing lives, it has been claimed.
The development of a multidisciplinary breast cancer service at University College Hospital Galway (UCHG) has led to a doubling in the number of women treated for breast cancer there, according to the latest figures.
However, in contrast to a similar centre of excellence at the Mater Hospital, Dublin, which treats patients from an adjacent breast screening unit, the mastectomy (full breast removal) rate in Galway remains high.
Women in the west and south of the State currently have no access to Breastcheck, the national breast screening service. It is estimated that 40 women in the west of Ireland die each year as a result.
Prof Michael Kerin, professor of surgery at NUI Galway and consultant breast surgeon at UCHG, said yesterday that two breast surgeons at the hospital had treated 120 cases of breast cancer in the past six months.
This compares with 130 breast cancer operations carried out for the whole of 2000.
But in a sign that women in the west were presenting late with the disease, Prof Kerin said he was performing mastectomies in more than 50 per cent of cases.
In contrast, when he worked as a consultant breast surgeon at the Mater and in the adjacent Eccles Breast Screening Unit, the mastectomy rate was only 22 per cent.
Commenting on the figures, Prof Kerin said: "It is so important that we get Breastcheck to roll out in Galway.
"We have all other parts of the multidisciplinary service in place," he said.
"With breast screening in place in the west of Ireland, we would expect to pick up 170 cancers every year."
Speaking last week, the Minister for Health, Ms Harney, gave a commitment that Breastcheck would provide a full national service by the end of 2007.
However, sources in Galway said that for this to happen, the Minister would need to commission a unit by next July at the latest.
There are fears it could be 2010 before Breastcheck becomes operational in Galway.
Medical sources have confirmed that for each year's delay in establishing breast screening in the western counties, 40 women will die who would otherwise have been picked up by screening and treated at an early stage of the disease.
Some 90 per cent of people with screening-detected cancers are alive 10 years after their diagnosis.
Prof Kerin said that as a result of a multidisciplinary approach to treatment, many more women are being afforded immediate breast reconstruction carried out at the same time as the cancer is removed.
"In January alone, 11 patients had immediate breast reconstruction," he said.
A recent paper published in the British Medical Journal showed the introduction of breast screening reduced the number of deaths from breast cancer by 25 per cent, according to Prof Kerin.
Researchers in Copenhagen assessed the effects of introducing a mammography-based screening programme 10 years earlier.
They found breast cancer mortality for all women dropped by a quarter; for those women who participated in screening, the reduction in the death rate was some 37 per cent.
While it would cost an additional €10 million to extend Breastcheck to the south and west, breast screening was a most cost-effective intervention, Prof Kerin said.