Never careless in her health check-ups, a 55-year-old woman decided to have a mammogram two months after getting a clean bill of health for an ultrasound of her breasts. It was an impromptu decision that saved her life.

The X-rays clearly indicated a two-centimetre long malignant tumour. Two years on she is in the clear and has made it her mission, through articles in the press and by word of mouth, to push women to get a mammogram before cancer ravages their bodies and their lives.

Luckily, the government is unknowingly helping her campaign and after years of political dilly-dallying it finally invested to introduce a national breast screening programme five months ago. About 30,000 women, aged between 50 and 59 years, will be called for screening over a period of three years, with about 1,000 women being checked every month.

Half the women called in for breast cancer screening since the programme was set up have gone for testing. The early stages of cancer were detected in seven out of every 1,000 women screened. Women's feedback has been considered positive by the government, which pointed out that it took 10 years for the UK to reach a 50 per cent participation rate.

Breast cancer is the most prevalent among women in Europe, responsible for 26.5 per cent of all new cancers and 17.5 per cent of cancer deaths.

In Malta, breast cancer is the most common cancer afflicting women - over 32 per cent of all such ailments - and a statistically significant increase in the local incidence is being observed by the Health Department's monitoring offices. Five-year survival rates for the island do not compare favourably and remain below the European average.

Mammography screening can detect breast cancer three to four years before symptoms would be noticed, dramatically improving the chances of effective treatment. However, such examinations can also detect lumps that are essentially harmless, exposing some women to undue anxiety and surgery.

Abroad there have been two schools of thoughts, one in favour and another against screening. While some doctors insist screening saves lives, others believe it can lead to over-treating and unnecessary intervention.

In January, a review by the Nordic Cochrane Centre, in Copenhagen, said thousands of women who attend routine breast screening checks are wrongly told they have life-threatening cancer and undergo unnecessary treatment each year. Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the researchers said improvements in breast cancer survival were more to do with improvements in treatment rather than detection through screening. They noted that many healthy women who attended screenings may have had benign conditions "over-diagnosed" by doctors.

But, another study of 80,000 women has emerged showing breast cancer screening does more good than harm and any over-treatment was justified by the number of lives saved. This study suggests that screening saves the lives of two women for each one who may have unnecessary treatment.

Doctors have warned that continuing disputes over the value of breast screening could confuse women and lead to dangerous diseases being missed.

Opting for screening seems to be the best advice and the government is finally on the right track.

The old adage that prevention is better than cure must still stand.