This article is from page 9 of the 2010-01-19 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 9 JPG
CLARE TD and Minister for State Tony Killeen (FF) is only too aware of what benefits the National Color- ectal Screening Service can bring to potential cancer suffers in Ireland.
The junior minister who was di- agnosed with bowel cancer last year said the announcement of the screen- ing service by the minister for health was positive, “as the key intervention in cancer of any kind is early diag- nosis”.
“If I went a bit sooner I would have
escaped the trauma and discomfort of chemotherapy,” he maintained.
“If I went later the outcome would be much more negative,” he added.
Announcing the new screening service, Minister Mary Harney said, “The next and most important clini- cal priority for population screening has been colorectal screening. This is acritically important development for both men and women. Colorectal screening has two great benefits – early detection of cancer, improving treatment outcomes, and the detec- tion of pre-cancerous growths.”
The first screening programme will be for people aged between 60 and oe,
“We are starting this year with the detailed preparations, so that the pro- gramme will commence screening in 2012 for the people involved on a national basis irrespective of where people live,” she said.
Minister Killeen added, “This is one of the diagnosis that tends to be very accurate, and with early diagno- sis the recovery rate is very high.”
“When an opportunity like this (screening) is put to people they usu-
ally use it,” he said.
The Clare Minister admitted that men are not the best however for attending doctors for tests, but said there is usually a positive if you go pm Ansar
“There 1s no advantage of going too late,’ he warned.
Colorectal cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer among men and women in Ireland.
About 2,200 new cases are diag- nosed every year and approximately 1,000 people die from it.
Free screening will initially be of-
fered to 400,000 people in the 60 to 69 age group. The programme will be operated by the National Cancer Screening Service in cooperation with the Health Service Executive and will be extended to all those aged 55 to 74 years of age “as logistics and resources allow”’.
The 60 to 69 year age group con- tains about 50 per cent of all cases of colorectal cancer in the 55 to 74 year age band, and other countries includ- ing England, Sweden and Finland have aimed their programmes on this 60 to 69 year age group also.