More women are having their breast cancer spotted early because of the success of breast cancer screening, a Rotary club has been told.
Speaking to members of Shrewsbury Severn Rotary Club, Miranda Ashwell, LiveLife Project Lead at the Lingen Davies Cancer Fund, said about 55,000 women a year in the UK are diagnosed annually.
“The good news is that because it is spotted early and treatment is now more effective, the risk of women dying within five years of diagnosis is estimated to be below 3% – an improvement on the 14% in the 1990s,” she said. “We need to continue improving the early diagnosis of cancer before it spreads which makes a huge difference to someone’s survival chances. There are a lot of misconceptions about cancer – I get some very funny questions. But cancer is scary. One in two of us get cancer – but spotting it early really improves our chances of survival.” She told Rotarians: “So we need to get this positive message across to people. The NHS long term plan is for 75% of cancer diagnosis to early stage1 or 2 by 2028 which is a big challenge. Our Shropshire and Telford Cancer Champion project is supported by the NHS and we fund our similar Powys project – Cancer Champions and all our LiveLife work is about raising awareness to improve early diagnosis rates. We’ve trained 81 Cancer Champions including Ukrainian refugees,” she added.
At the end of her illustrated talk she gave each Rotarian an information leaflet highlighting early cancer symptoms to look out for. For information: www.lingendavies.co.uk or www.cancerchampions.co.uk
Anyone interested in finding out more about Rotary or joining Shrewsbury Severn Rotary Club can contact gdmw@hotmail.co.uk
