ZAGREB, 5 Oct (Hina) - The 25th Pink Ribbon Day was marked in Zagreb on Saturday to raise awareness of breast cancer and highlight the importance of regular examinations and early detection of the disease.

"We are doing this to make women aware of how important examinations are, how important self-awareness is, how important it is to take care of yourself. Mortality has decreased in Croatia, and that is the result of the work of all our fraternal associations and the state system," said Vesna Ramljak, president of the Europa Donna Croatia association, the Croatian forum for the fight against breast cancer.

She expressed the hope that there would be fewer cancer deaths.

Irena Hrstić, State Secretary at the Ministry of Health, said that during the 18 years of the implementation of the National Breast Cancer Early Detection Program about 2 million mammographic examinations had been performed and 10,000 new breast cancers detected, 60 per cent of which were in the localised stage, which increased the chance of successful treatment. "And that is precisely the goal of this program - to detect the disease at the earliest stage," she stressed.

Hrstić said that it is the most successful national program with the highest response rate of 62 per cent, which is above the EU average. "Thanks to this, we have seen a continuous drop in mortality of 30 per cent over the past eight years, which, according to the latest Eurostat estimates, puts us at the very top of the EU.

She added that the focus of the Croatian healthcare reform is on prevention, so in the coming cycles the scope of national prevention will be broadened to include younger women, starting from the age of 45.