*Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy (FF). Photograph: Eamon Ward
AN ELECTED representative from Ennis has led the call for the introduction of a screening programme to help detect lung cancer.
Currently, there is no national screening programme for lung cancer in Ireland. Testing for lung cancer when you have no symptoms is called screening.
More than 2,500 people are diagnosed with lung cancer every year in Ireland, it is the third most common type of cancer in Ireland. More than four in five cases of lung cancer are non-small-cell lung cancer.
About seven in ten people diagnosed with lung cancer in Ireland are age 65 and older while it is rarer in people younger than forty.
Smoking is the main cause of lung cancer. Seven in ten people who get lung cancer smoke or used to smoke but people can get lung cancer even if they have never smoked.
According to the HSE, early diagnosis can make a big difference to treating lung cancer. Four in ten people with lung cancer live for at least one year while one in ten live at least ten years.
Thousands of lives could be saved each year if the screening programme was introduced in Ireland and the United Kingdom, research published last year by Cancer Research UK detailed.
In a proposal before Clare County Council, Cllr Clare Colleran Molloy (FF) stated, “In the circumstances where the Irish Cancer Society claim that screening could save ‘One Life a Day’ and where Lung Cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related mortality in Ireland, accounting for 1083 deaths annually between 2018 and 2020, and where the majority of cases of this type of cancer are usually at an advanced stage when diagnosed, that the Minister for Health, implement Lung Cancer screening to detect the cancer at early stage”.
She said the tabling of the motion was inspired by a neighbour. “I have an experience of an untimely death due to lung cancer,” she admitted. “I ask the new Government that similar to breast, bowel and cervical cancer that we adopt a campaign to detect lung cancer sooner,” the Mayor of the Ennis Municipal District outlined.
Screening “does increase chances of survival, screening can save one life a day”. The Quin native said it was “the fifth biggest killer in Ireland” and among the “most common cancers” with a survival rate of fifteen percent. “I’m asking the new Minister to adopt a similar programme to what is in Scotland and the UK to detect cancer early,” she added. “It is essence to introduce a screening campaign for lung cancer and in conjunction raise awareness,” Colleran Molloy added.
Seconding the proposal, Cllr John Crowe (FG) labelled it as “an excellent motion, it is something which should have been brought in years ago”. He added, “this is most important because you can see by the figures the number of deaths caused by lung cancer every year, one a day, it should be brought to the top of the list for the jobs of the new Minister”.
“It is obvious for us to see it is a campaign that we should do,” Cllr Colleran Molloy responded.
Within the UK, England is the only country implementing the UK National Screening Committee’s recommendation to offer lung cancer screening to all those at the highest risk of the disease (people aged between 55 and 74 who either smoke or used to smoke). Its plan is to reach forty percent of this group by March 2025 and 100% by March 2030.
