Ireland has struggled a lot to improve cancer survival rate in the country. It is due to their efforts that they have comes on the lines of Britain and Northern Ireland. But they feel that there is a scope for improvement and with little more efforts they could match up with countries which have best cancer surviving rates across the globe.

A few of the countries which have best cancer surviving rate are Scandinavia, Australia and Canada. Dr. Susan O’Reilly, who is director of the National Cancer Control Programme, told that she knows that how they can enter in the list of top cancer survival countries.

The key to success is to implement well-organized cancer control systems, said she. Susan further affirmed that if they are able to implement the systems then they can improve cancer survival rate by 10%. There has an improvement in the survival rate, but much more can be done and they can be as good as other top countries.

There has been tremendous improvement in the survival rate of colorectal cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer and ovarian cancer. All this has become possible due to the improvements in the provision of cancer care.

Ireland has awakened to the concept of cancer screening programmes. This is the first step for early intervention. Last year, as many as 1,944 people attended lung cancer screenings and 385 of them were diagnosed with the cancer. This helped the doctors to start with early treatment.

In addition, Susan talked about fund raising and cancer treatment for patients. She told about the Irish Cancer Society’s fundraising drive which aims to raise €3.5 million. The fundraising drive would start from March 23 and the event has more reasons to celebrate and that it would also celebrate its 25th anniversary.