First year of free cervical screening programme saw 285,000 women

MORE THAN a quarter of a million women received free smear tests in the first year of a national screening programme in which over 100 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer.

CervicalCheck’s aim after some time is not to detect cervical cancer but to prevent it, Tony O’Brien, director of the National Cancer Screening Service, said yesterday.

He was speaking at the launch of the programme’s first annual report covering the period September 2008 to August 2009.

Just a quarter (285,000) of the more than 1.1 million eligible women went for a smear test in the first year of the service, the report found. The screening service is available mainly to women aged between 25 and 60.

More than 40 per cent of those screened were between 25 and 35.

Mr O’Brien said about 5 per cent of invitation letters had been sent to an incorrect address.

Almost one in six of the smear tests returned abnormal results. Most of these were low grade abnormalities with 1.4 per cent high grade. About 4 per cent of those tested were sent for a colposcopy [examination of the cervix].

The report revealed some challenges in providing a colposcopy service to the women with abnormal results. One in six women were waiting more than three months for the test while more than one-third of women were waiting over two months.

Dr Gráinne Flannelly, clinical director of colposcopy with the programme, outlined improvements since then. At present women in every geographical area except the east coast were being seen within a month for high grade abnormalities and two months for low grade abnormalities, she said.

About half of the programme’s laboratory tests are expected to conducted Ireland by next year, Mr O’Brien said.

A tender process in May awarded half of the contract to an Australian company which is to open a full service laboratory in Ireland. The rest of the results will continue to be processed by a US-based company.