€4m for Galway university to improve breast cancer research
Chair of Surgery at the university, Professor Michael Kerin, said that women in the west of Ireland have the highest incidence of breast cancer in the country.
"We're challenged in delivering care in the west of Ireland because of the dispersion, social isolation, the distance between many of the patients and the institution," said.
Prof Kerin added that University Hospital Galway, which houses the cancer centre, "has the most dilapidated and out-of-date facilities in the country, mainly due to the fact that it was built in 1953".
"But we have a very progressive plan in place now and we've been accredited as a European cancer network ... so that while the cancer centre delivers complex care such as the surgery and radiotherapy ... then the care is given as close to home as possible.
"This has huge implications for improving care for our population," Prof Kerin, who is a consultant surgeon at the hospital, told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.
The funding, he said, will be used in a number of areas, including research on metastatic breast cancer, the genes that cause breast cancer and developing the biobank of patient samples.
The Lambe Institute for Translational Research, which is based on the grounds of the hospital, has a large number of samples and these allow scientists, engineers and doctors to translate their findings "from the bench to the bedside to make real differences in outcomes for patients," Prof Kerin said.
Asked about the cost of new cancer drugs, he said that "all aspects of cancer care are costly and the way to do it is in an integrated network ... around diagnostics, access to the operating room and access to drugs".
Ireland's drugs bill has reached nearly €4 billion a year and "there are issues around ensuring that people get access to appropriate drugs," Prof Kerin said.
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