A SIGNIFICANT turning of the tide in the war against breast cancer was signalled just over two years ago when death rates in our region were shown to have dropped by more than a fifth over a decade.

The advance was due to more women receiving crucial early detection and treatment.

How encouraging, then, to see this momentum being kept up in East Lancashire -- so that even more benefit .

This heartening progress is due to increased investment by the NHS in the battle against cancer, with the extra money being ploughed into more staff so that vital scanners can be used more often.

And whereas, previously, the East Lancashire Breast Scanning Unit, was only available to women aged from 50 to 65, a rolling programme has now been introduced across the whole area offering it to women up to 70.

Not only that, the extra investment has given Burnley General Hospital a new scanner that will cut waiting lists by providing 1,000 more investigations a year and which gives doctors faster and better images, all of which enables diagnosis and treatment to take place sooner -- a factor so crucial in beating this disease.

The tide was already turning in the war against this killer. Now, marvellously, it is turning faster still in East Lancashire.