Same-day breast cancer results offered

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TORONTO, May 7 (UPI) -- A Toronto benefactor has enabled the Princess Margaret Hospital to screen patients for breast cancer and have results ready the same day.

Under the cancer hospital's traditional system, women could wait as long as 37 days for a diagnosis and treatment plan but a $12.5 million donation allows the hospital to acquire a diagnostic equipment that analyzes core biopsies within hours, The Globe and Mail reported.

The grant came from Emmanuelle Gattuso and her husband, broadcasting magnate Allan Slaight. Gattuso was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2003 and said she remembers the seemingly interminable wait for a diagnosis and treatment plan.

"The most stressful thing, really, is the wait time," she told the newspaper. "My ultimate dream is that it (rapid diagnosis) happens for every kind of cancer."

Gattuso and her husband are working at raising another $12.5 million to expand the program to 750 patients in 2009-10, then to 1,500 in 2011-12, the report said.