New facilities: BreastCheck has confirmed that its new screening facilities being planned for the south and west will be big enough to allow breast cancer screening to be extended to older women at a future date.
At present the screening programme is available only to women aged 50-64 years but there have been calls for it to be extended to women up to the age of 69 years.
BreastCheck's director, Tony O'Brien, indicated yesterday that BreastCheck would like to be in a position to screen women up to the age of 69 years, but only after all women in the 50-64 years age group have been provided with screening first.
Screening is provided to women up to 69 years in Holland and in the UK the National Health Service is in the process of extending screening to all women up to age 70.
Dr Patricia Fitzpatrick, head of BreastCheck's evaluation unit, has reviewed the evidence for extending the screening programme to older women here and, in a position paper published yesterday, concluded there was evidence that screening women aged 65-69 years "is of value". However, she said it was "essential" that the introduction of the national programme to women aged 50-64 years in the south and west "precedes any investment in screening for older ages".
She said early detection of breast cancer in the 50-64 age group "has much greater potential for improvements in years of potential life lost".
Mr O'Brien said BreastCheck would "welcome" being in a position to extend the age range to which it provides screening to 69 years "in light of the evidence available of the benefits it would bring to that age group" but he said this was a matter for Government.
"It would have significant resource implications and BreastCheck would have to engage additional mobile units, radiography and consultant personnel. It's not something that could be implemented overnight," he said.
In the context of planning facilities for the introduction of BreastCheck to the south and west, which is due to happen by late 2007 at the latest, he said BreastCheck was making sure the facilities being put in place in Galway and Cork were "future proof and capable of meeting the demands they are likely to face". This included an extension of the screening age bands.
"There is no point in putting up a building now that would not lend itself to the increasing demand that would arise if the age range was extended," he said.
If screening was extended to women aged 65-69 years, BreastCheck estimates an additional 80,000 women would be entitled to screening by the year 2008.
A design team for the provision of BreastCheck screening facilities in the south and west will be appointed this week.