Large numbers of young women at very little risk of developing cervical cancer are attending their GPs for smear tests and are "drowning" laboratories with unnecessary work, it was claimed yesterday.
Prof Walter Prendiville, consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist at the Coombe Women's Hospital in Dublin, told the Dáil health committee that doctors in the UK had stopped screening women under the age of 25 years.
"We should probably do the same," he said. Women aged between 25 and 60 years should be screened as part of a national screening programme, he added.
At present in all areas except the midwest, the only way women can avail of screening is by attending their GPs for a smear test. This is described as "opportunistic screening" and Prof Prendiville said this type of screening "doesn't work". Deaths from cervical cancer were increasing in the Republic, he said.
He said 70,000 women had been screened in the midwest under the first phase of the national screening programme. The number of women who should be screened in the State was one million.
He told the committee that systematic cervical screening will save lives, up to 50 a year. He explained that smear tests miss 10 to 30 per cent of abnormalities and this was why regular screening was necessary.
He said a vaccination against cervical cancer is on the way. "Two large companies have produced a vaccine and it appears to work." However he said the vaccination of teenagers was likely to be contentious.
It will cost €25 million to set up and run a national screening programme, the committee heard, and it will take 18 months to roll it out nationally once a decision is made to provide it. Prof Prendiville said deaths from cervical cancer plummeted in the UK since it introduced a national screening programme in 1989.
Fiona O'Malley, a PD member of the committee, said: "I don't understand why it isn't a priority", referring to a national screening programme. She said it was very clear a national programme would deliver results. The case for it was compelling.
John McCormack, of the Irish Cancer Society, said the women of Ireland had been let down by successive governments.
Earlier this month, Minister for Health Mary Harney requested the Health Service Executive to prepare an implementation plan for the roll-out of a national cervical screening programme. But she has given no timeframe for the roll-out.