Breast Cancer Screening (Young Women)

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Pat Glass]

That is incredibly true. I am particularly concerned about young women, and in many cases the younger they are, the more virulent the disease is and the chances of survival are less good as a result, so that is particularly crucial. Every family in this country will be touched by this awful disease. Within my family, four close relatives have died of breast cancer in recent years, all aged well under 50; and a cousin, also under 50, is currently battling the disease for a second time.

However, it was an inspirational woman, Trish Greensmith, who runs the Chyrelle Addams breast cancer appeal trust in my constituency, who first brought home to me the number of young women who are being diagnosed with, and having to fight, breast cancer today. She told me that when she first visited an oncology clinic she was struck by the number of young women in the waiting room—young women who were trying to deal with virulent and aggressive cancers while bringing up young families. Under the current system, they would never be offered the opportunity for routine screening, which might have detected their cancers early and saved their lives. More women are surviving breast cancer than ever before, and the survival rates have steadily improved over the past 30 years, but 12,000 women and 70 men in the UK died from breast cancer last year.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Few people will not have a friend or relative who will suffer from breast cancer and who would benefit from earlier diagnosis and improved information. I understand that Cambridge university has developed a computer programme called “Predict”, which allows any patient—or doctor—to go online and enter their symptoms and the kind of cancer they have, and it will predict their life expectancy and the likelihood of survival. Does my hon. Friend agree that that would be another useful tool to help inform and reassure women and men who are diagnosed with breast cancer?

[Pat Glass]

I am aware of the “Predict” computer system, which is an incredibly useful tool in the hands of clinicians, but I do not think it should be generally available for people to use in their own homes to calculate, using their symptoms, how long they have to live. I think they would find that very worrying. However, it would be incredibly useful for their doctor.

Of the women who died last year from breast cancer, 1,300 were under 50 years old. We know that women with a mother, sister or daughter who have been diagnosed with breast cancer have almost double the risk of being diagnosed themselves. We know that the risk increases with the number of first-degree relatives diagnosed, but even so, eight out of nine breast cancers occur in women with no family history of cancer whatsoever.