<p>
	Free mammograms are offered every two years to all women aged 50-64.</p>
<p>
	ALTHOUGH OVER 88,000 women between the ages of 50 and 64 were invited for a free BreastCheck screening up to May of this year, over 25,000 of them did not take up the offer.</p>
<p>
	The figures were provided by Minister for Health Simon Harris in response to a parliamentary question from Fianna F&aacute;il&rsquo;s health spokesperson Billy Kelleher.</p>
<p>
	Last week, BreastCheck&rsquo;s lead clinical director Professor Ann O&rsquo;Doherty urged women to &ldquo;please make time to go your appointment&rdquo;. She added that it &ldquo;could save your life&rdquo;.</p>
<p>
	Of the 63,480 women screened, an &ldquo;abnormal mammographic result&rdquo; was found in 1,630 cases. The statistics showed 93.6% of these women were offered an appointment for an assessment clinic within two weeks of notification of this result.</p>
<p>
	Harris added: &ldquo;The proportion of women, to 31 May 2017, who have been invited for screening within 24 months of becoming eligible or since their last screening appointment is 49% (53,145)&rdquo;.</p>
<p>
	Figures are also included for women aged 65-69, after the HSE began offering women in that age group free screenings in late 2015. Of the 4,555 women aged 65 invited to May 2017, 3,205 were screened.</p>
<p>
	The HSE published screening statistics for its national breast screening programme for 2015/16 last week.</p>
<p>
	Over that period, BreastCheck&nbsp;invited 198,986 women for screening with a total of 145,822 women attending for a mammogram. In that time, 986 cancers were detected.</p>
<p>
	Uptake, however, at 74.7% was lower than the previous years&rsquo; figure of 76.5%.</p>
<p>
	Professor O&rsquo;Doherty said: &ldquo;BreastCheck can only be effective in achieving its goal of reducing the number of mortalities from breast cancer in the population if at least 70% of eligible women attend their screenings.</p>
<p>
	&ldquo;Therefore, it is crucial that we work to maintain the strong uptake rate achieved to date. Almost 90% of women who come for their first BreastCheck mammogram come back again the next time they are invited.&rdquo;</p>
<p>
	To date, the BreastCheck programme has provided more than 1.5 million mammograms to over 500,000 women, and detected 9,800 cancers, the HSE said in a statement.</p>
<p>
	&nbsp;</p>
<p>
	(Published by TheJournal.ie on the 14th August 2017)</p>
<p>
	<a href="http://www.thejournal.ie/breast-check-women-3541386-Aug2017/">http://www.thejournal.ie/breast-check-women-3541386-Aug2017/</a></p>
