Breast scare for Hodgkin's women

The Health and Personal Social Services (HPSS) is to offer regular breast screening to women who have received supradiaphragmatic radiotherapy after new evidence suggested that women who received this particular form of treatment at or below the age of 35, could be at increased risk of developing breast cancer.

Supradiaphragmatic radiotherapy, radiotherapy that included part of the breast, has been used as a form of treatment for Hodgkin's disease for decades.

However, following the advice of an expert advisory group, HPSS is offering regular breast screening for women who have been treated in such a way since 1959.

The Northern Ireland Cancer Registry has identified about 130 women with Hodgkin’s disease who received this particular form of radiotherapy at or below the age of 35. The Cancer Units and Cancer Centre will be writing to these women directly to invite them to a consultation to discuss this information and the options available.

However, there may be some women who because this treatment was administered a long time ago or because they were treated outside Northern Ireland and moved here subsequently, it may not be possible to contact them directly.

Dr Henrietta Campbell, Chief Medical Officer, said: "It is important to recognise that this exercise is not about an error in treatment. Radiotherapy is very effective in patients with Hodgkin's disease. Without radiotherapy many of these patients would have died.

“However, we now know that more of these patients are developing breast cancer than would normally be expected. That is why we are taking action to alert patients and to offer them screening to try and pick up any cancers early.

"We are sending letters directly to as many of the women who fall into this group as possible. However, some of these women received this treatment more than 40 years ago or outside Northern Ireland and we may not realistically be able to trace all of them.”

Members of the public who are concerned may contact Action Cancer for further information or visit their website, www.actioncancer.org, 028 90 803344.

(MB)