Group to highlight EU breast cancer level

The high levels of breast cancer in Europe will be emphasised when MEPs are lobbied by a European breast cancer coalition in Brussels today.

A woman is diagnosed with breast cancer every 2½ minutes in the European Union while the disease kills a woman every 6½ minutes, according to Europa Donna, a European coalition of breast cancer lobby groups.

The group is one of the organisers of a breast cancer exhibition in Brussels this week. Europa Donna Ireland, the Irish breast cancer campaign, is one of 29 lobby groups involved in the coalition.

Ms Deirdre O'Connell, chairwoman of Europa Donna Ireland, said Ireland's breast cancer rate was still very high and her group would be putting the new Government under pressure over the lack of urgency in providing State-wide specialist breast cancer clinics.

She pointed to the recommendation in a report to the Department of Health in 2000 that 13 specialist breast clinics be established and said the group was very unhappy at the progress on this.

While clinics of some form operated in many places, "they haven't anything like the full resources they need", she said.

"It's been shown that people treated at such clinics have a 15-20 per cent better chance of survival, so we are very anxious that this recommendation is fully implemented."

The urgent need to extend the breast screening programme to the entire State would also be emphasised.

This State had the third highest mortality rate in the European Union, after Denmark and the Netherlands, she said.