A leading Irish geneticist has called on the Health Service Executive (HSE) to urgently allocate more funding for cancer risk-assessment clinics.
At a conference hosted by the Irish Cancer Society in Dublin today, Professor of Genetics at University College Dublin Andrew Green said: "Some families are at high risk of having hereditary cancer.
Professor of Genetics at University College Dublin Andrew Green
"They need careful assessment by specially trained staff advising on what cancer surveillance they need, and for some people, genetic testing is required."
He explained that most cancer risk-assessment clinics are funded by grants with no permanent funding.
"There are too few genetic nurses working in these risk assessment clinics, and the hereditary cancer service in the National Centre for Medical Genetics is also understaffed," he said.
Prof Green called on the HSE call to make family-cancer, risk-assessment clinics a priority when they are considering resources for the proposed eight new cancer-care centres.
There are two major groups of hereditary cancer. The first group comprises of rare hereditary cancer syndromes defined by a rare tumour type such as familial.
The second group is a subset of common cancers like breast, ovarian and colon cancer. Prof Green explained that up of 10 per cent of new cases of breast cancer are hereditary, amounting to around 180 cases annually in Ireland.
Around 5 to 10 per cent new cases of ovarian cancer are hereditary (about 30 cases), and about 5 per cent of new cases of colon cancer (about 100 cases) are hereditary.