Inherited breast cancer goes under microscope

A €2.4 million project that will study familial breast cancer among Maltese and Sicilian communities was officially launched yesterday by Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia. The project, work on which started in March and will continue until 2015, will be led by the Health Ministry with the participation of the University of Malta and the Malta Council for Science and Technology. The EU co-funded project, called IMaGenX, will design and test IT systems to evaluate genetic, environmental and lifestyle risks related to breast cancer among the two communities. The data would be analysed and distributed to help people lower the risk. A desktop and smartphone app would be developed whereby young women input their lifestyle details and would be given a risk profile, project leader Joe Psaila said. Speaking during a visit to the National Health Screening Centre at Lascaris Wharf, Dr Farrugia argued that, along with being better for patients, disease prevention techniques such as screening were more cost-effective, pointing out that treatment was invariably more expensive. The breast screening programme implemented by the centre had been commended by the International Agency for Research on...