BreastCheck benefits need to be examined

Breast screening is fallible, and with potential extra costs due to legal actions, questions about the viability of the programme are invevitable

There is debate in some countries as to whether breast screening should be continued at all

Cancer screening aims to reduce the death rate from the disease in society by applying mass-scale, population-based, detection tests to large numbers of healthy, asymptomatic people.

Government-run programmes in Ireland now screen approximately 500,000 citizens annually for cervical, breast and bowel cancer, at a cumulative annual cost of €71 million.

The type of tests that can be deployed on such huge scales must of necessity be relatively quick, simple and affordable. The actual benefit for ...