Mayo breast cancer care campaigner concerns over treatment outcomes

Irish Independent

07-05-2025

Hollymount resident Margaret Walsh is a patient advocate for Lobular Ireland, who advocate for patients with lobular breast cancer, a form of breast cancer which frequently goes undetected until it has reached an advanced stage.
Ms Walsh is recovering from pleomorphic lobular carcinoma in situ. She was diagnosed eight months after her daughter, Sinéad – who has since recovered – was diagnosed with leukaemia in 2022.
Lobular Ireland is campaigning for the HSE to fund testing for dense breast tissue, which is one of the most reliable ways to detect lobular cancer.
Siobhán Freeney, Chairperson of Lobular Ireland, will make a presentation on the subject to TDs and Senators in the audio-visual room of Leinster House. She will be joined by William Gallagher, Professor of Cancer Biology at University College Dublin (UCD) and Director of the All-Island Institute of Cancer Research. Martha Lovett Cullen, who is campaigning for mandatory breast density reporting, will also address elected representatives. Their visit to Leinster House in being facilitated by Labour Senator Nessa Cosgrove.
Around 400 women are diagnosed with lobular breast cancer in Ireland each year. Forty percent of women carry dense breast tissue, which shows up as white – the same colour as cancer – on mammograms. The HSE currently does not fund dense breast tissue tests.
Lobular Ireland have made made two submissions to the National Screening Advisory Committee in response to the Minister for Health's annual call for public submissions in relation to screening programmes.
The group are calling on the Minister for Health to mandate for standardised breast density reporting for women who have mammograms in Ireland.
'We've had little to no information other than receipt of our submission,' campaigners wrote in a letter to TDs and Senators. 'We have recently requested a status update from the NSAC and the Health Information and Quality Authority.'
In 2024, following a 12-year-long campaign, the United States made it mandatory for women who receive mammograms to be informed about their breast tissue density.
The European Society of Breast Imaging (EUSOBI) has said that 'women should be appropriately informed about their individual breast density - and the diagnostic and prognostic implications of having dense breasts - by all (European) organisations that offer breast screening in order to help them make well-balanced choices' once the necessary quality assurance systems and benchmarks are implemented for non-mammographic screening methods.