KYLIE MINOGUE'S breast cancer battle has inspired a campaigner to take her fight for better screening for the disease to the Scottish Parliament.

When Katie Moffat discovered Kylie's diagnosis was part of the trend of younger women developing breast cancer, she set up a campaign to extend screening.

The civil servant said: "I've been thinking about this for some time. When Kylie was diagnosed, that affected me quite a lot - that really kicked it all off. After I read it in the news I got chatting to my friends one night and found that quite a few people they knew were suffering from breast cancer.

"I didn't realise how close to home it could be. I suddenly realised that this is quite common and is affecting more people at such a young age."

In the south-east of Scotland, incidences of breast cancer have doubled in the past decade, and there are more than a 1000 cases every year. In the Lothians, there were 590 cases of breast cancer in 2002.

She argues that by the time a younger woman finds a lump in her breast and receives a test for breast cancer, the disease is already at an advanced stage.

If women were screened every three years from the age of 30, at the same time as they received a smear test, she believes there would be more chance of catching the cancer early and treating it successfully. The campaigner will go before the public petitions committee at the parliament tomorrow and urge politicians to act quickly.

But a spokeswoman for charity Breakthrough Breast Cancer said mammograms were not as effective in younger women because their breast tissue was more dense, making it harder to see any cancer on the x-ray.

She added: "Nearly 80 per cent of all breast cancers are detected by women who report unusual changes to their doctor. This statistic highlights the importance of being breast aware.

"Breast awareness means knowing what your breasts look and feel like normally, so you can be aware of any changes and check them out with your doctor as soon as possible. If cancer is diagnosed, prompt treatment offers the best chance of a successful outcome."

Stephen Duffy, professor of cancer screening for Cancer Research UK, said the charity was funding research into alternative methods of detecting early breast cancers.

"We don't know whether screening women in their 30s for breast cancer would be effective," Mr Duffy added. "Incidence in that age group is very low, and at that age breast tissue is more dense, which makes it harder to pick up the signs of breast cancer.

"What we do know is that screening that age group could do some harm. Women could experience anxiety from having the test or from getting a false positive result."

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