Women can make use of a new web app, the Imagenx Touch, to assess their risk of breast cancer.

The newly launched app identifies women at low, medium or high risk of breast cancer and provides practical recommendations tailor-made according to each user’s history, age, family tree and lifestyle. 

While breast screening in Malta is available for women between 50 and 65 years of age, the app targets a significantly younger population aged between 16 and 40 years of age who nevertheless may be susceptible to breast cancer.

This is the second phase of the Imagenx (Italia Malta Genome Breast Cancer Cross Border Risk Surveillance) project, a €2.5 million EU co-funded project between Italy and Malta.

The first phase was rolled out last year through web-based database for the use of doctors.

Head of screening services Joe Psaila explained that the aim was to identify people at risk before any tangible symptoms such as lumps have manifested.

Breast cancer has a 95 per cent survival rate if diagnosed early.

“We aim to make technology more widely available. Our society has matured and it is time to put technology into the hands of the Maltese.”

Half of premature death could be prevented by changing one’s bad health habits.

The app can be accessed here.