Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-05-Speech-4-017"
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"en.20030605.1.4-017"2
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".
Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to tell you that 15 national presidents from the European Breast Cancer Coalition, Europa Donna, are following this debate in the public gallery.
Breast cancer affects all of us. In the European Union, someone is diagnosed with it every two and a half minutes. Every year, 216 000 women suffer from this disease and 79 000 women still die from it even though 90% of all cases can be cured if they are diagnosed and properly treated at an early stage. For the most part, these women die when they have their most important responsibilities in society. Breast cancer is still the most frequent cause of death in women between the ages of 35 and 55. Every year, though, 25 000 women could be saved if all Member States were to offer proper preventive care, that is to say, screening in accordance with the European Guidelines for Mammography Screening. They would provide women with a guarantee that their radiologist carries out only breast X-ray examinations and that he reads about 5 000 mammograph screenings a year, which enables him to evaluate them with an experienced eye.
It is completely unacceptable that, eleven years after the EU guidelines were submitted, only eight Member States offer national mammography screening programmes. In countries like Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, 90% of all women aged between 50 and 69 already participate in screening programmes, but in my own country of Germany, barely 2% of women in this age group are offered screening. This despite the fact that, according to the World Health Organisation, it can be proved that mammography screening reduces mortality by an unbelievable 35%.
Even the best early detection is of no use however if subsequent treatment is inadequate, or downright wrong. The report therefore calls on Member States to establish a network of multidisciplinary breast centres to cover the entire population of the EU, with one centre for every 330 000 inhabitants. These centres should be certified by an independent body and subject to regular review. The entire medical team of doctors and nurses should specialise in both benign and malignant breast disease and there should be multidisciplinary case conferences to discuss each case. It is particularly important that the surgeons should perform only breast operations, and that the centre should perform a minimum of 150 primary breast cancer operations per year, because expert knowledge comes only through experience.
These breast centres are extremely important because it has been shown that women who are treated in them have a higher chance of being cured. Rates of survival in Sweden, for example, which has both nation-wide screening and breast centres, are 16% higher than in Austria, where neither of these exist. In fact, only Sweden, Denmark, Portugal and the United Kingdom have breast centres that cover the entire country. It is precisely because of these disparities in the mortality and survival rates that we must develop a common European strategy in the fight against breast cancer. We have to get the right information quicker and get better at exchanging experience. We have to introduce a system of benchmarking and be guided by best practice. This is the only way to save the lives of more women and, at the same time, help to reduce the cost of health care. And I am convinced that it is the only way to exert positive pressure on countries that lag behind.
The same is also true of national cancer registers, which are a fundamental prerequisite for reliable data, and which exist only in half of the Member States. Our request to governments to create, by 2008, the conditions required for a 25% reduction in the breast-cancer mortality rate in the EU is not unrealistic. It can be achieved if the political will exists and if the medical profession supports us. The United Kingdom has been exemplary in showing us how. In this regard, I would ask the Commission to join us in taking stock of the situation in 2006. We know that the Commission is on our side. This was made clear once more with the proposal for a Council recommendation on cancer prevention. It is only if the proposals made in this report are rapidly implemented that every woman in Europe – irrespective of place of residence, social status and education – will soon have the same optimum screening for, and treatment of, cancer."@en1
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