Irish women have a one in 12 chance of breast cancer, writes Eithne Donnellan, Health Correspondent
Women across the State need to understand the risk factors for breast cancer and be breast aware, the Irish Cancer Society advised yesterday as news of Kylie Minogue's breast cancer diagnosis broke.
By being breast aware, it said, women will know their breasts and be able to report changes to their GP without delay.
Irish women have a one in 12 chance of developing breast cancer and latest figures show new cases are increasing.
Some 1,891 new cases were diagnosed in 2000 and 2,020 cases were diagnosed in 2001, the latest years for which figures are available from the National Cancer Registry.
The exact cause of breast cancer is not known, but the biggest risk factor is increasing age. Of the 2,020 new cases of breast cancer diagnosed in the Republic in 2001, the majority - some 906 cases - were in women aged between 45 and 64 years.
However, younger women are also at risk. Some 14 per cent of new cases diagnosed in 2001 - a total of 288 - were in women aged between 25 and 45 years. There were also two cases in women under 25 years.
And while almost exclusively a women's disease, approximately 16 men also develop breast cancer in the State every year.
The disease claimed 671 lives in the Republic in 2001.
Apart from increasing age other risk factors include having a family history of the disease - about 5 per cent of breast cancer is inherited, and having an early menstruation or late menopause.
Further risk factors include not having children or having a first child after the age of 30 years, obesity in post-menopausal women, lack of physical activity, smoking and alcohol consumption.
Prof John Armstrong, chairman of the Irish Cancer Society and consultant oncologist at St Vincent's and St Luke's hospitals, said that at present about 75 per cent of women diagnosed with breast cancer have long-term survival prospects.
Symptoms women should look out for, he said, were a lump on the breast, a change in the shape of the breast, a change in the nipple or a discharge from the nipple.
If any of these symptoms were found a woman should promptly attend her doctor, he advised.
"What she should not do is notice something and out of fear do nothing about it. They can do something about it and relieve their anxiety because in the vast majority of cases these problems are benign," he said.
One could only speculate on the prognosis for a woman like Kylie Minogue, he added. The priority for those treating her or other women with breast cancer would be to preserve the breast. A team would decide whether the tumour could be removed without her having to undergo a mastectomy.
Then, he said, a woman would be treated with radiation and her most at risk lymph node would be examined. If it was normal she would not require an operation on her armpit. If it was abnormal she would. The molecular and microscopic traits of her tumour would also be examined to determine if she was at significant risk of her cancer spreading and if she was she would have to receive chemotherapy or hormone therapy. But, he said, the chances were Kylie Minogue's tumour was small, not aggressive and that she could have her breast conserved, her armpit not operated on, have some form of chemical treatment and a survival prospect of 90 per cent plus.
The awareness her case would create could cause some women to worry unnecessarily, he said.
Calls to the Irish Cancer Society's helpline (1800 30 90 40) doubled yesterday. But the news might also make the public and politicians aware of the importance of breast cancer and allocating more resources to it. The remainder of the BreastCheck programme needed to be rolled out as quickly as possible, he said.