A national screening programme to detect lung cancer could dramatically improve people's chances of survival, a respiratory physician said yesterday.
Dr Finbarr O'Connell, consultant respiratory physician at St James's Hospital, said there was an urgent need to look at the value of a national screening programme to target "at risk" groups.
A person contracting lung cancer had a 90 per cent chance of dying from it but there were indications that early detection programmes could reduce this to 30 per cent, he said. Lung cancer was "in a league of its own" as it killed about 1,500 people every year, while other major cancers resulted in far fewer deaths. Because of the nature of the illness, people do not realise they have lung cancer until it is in the late, fatal stages.
Those most at risk of lung cancer are people over 50 years of age who have smoked at least one pack of cigarettes a day for 10 years, or at least two packs per day for five years.
"Some 35 per cent of Irish teenagers smoke. The tobacco companies are much better at replacing dead smokers with teenage addicts than we are at helping people to give up smoking," Dr O'Connell said. He also pointed out that Irish women were twice as likely to contract lung cancer than their EU counterparts and predicted that this would lead to a lung cancer "epidemic" in women. Dr O'Connell is a member of the All-Ireland Lung Cancer Working Group, which has drawn up a set of guidelines for the speedy diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer.
The guidelines, which will be launched by the Minister for Health, Mr Martin, next month, state that a patient must not have to wait more than four weeks between first seeing a specialist and beginning treatment.
Anyone concerned about their risk of lung cancer can contact the Irish Cancer Society freephone helpline at 1800 200 700.
