NEW figures reveal that the number of women screened for cervical cancer in Northern Ireland falls well below target levels.
Only 72 per cent of women within the target age group in the Province had a cervical smear test in the five-year period up to 31 March 2003 – contrasting with higher figures for England, Scotland and Wales. NHS targets for cervical screening call for a minimum of 80 per cent of Northern Ireland women aged between 20 and 65 to be screened every five years.
Cancer Research N. Ireland today urges women in the Province to take up the opportunity to be screened for cervical cancer when they receive an invitation, as screening is the best available way for women to prevent cervical cancer developing.
Each year around 90 women in Northern Ireland are diagnosed with cervical cancer and about 30 die of the disease.
But cases of cervical cancer have fallen since cervical screening programmes were introduced in the mid-1960s.
Dr Sarah McKenna, Medical Oncologist at the Belfast City Hospital, says:
"Cervical screening saves thousands of lives every year across the UK. Doctors recommend that every woman between the ages of 20 and 65 in Northern Ireland have a smear test at least every 5 years.
"A positive result from a smear test doesn't mean you have cancer. The test is important because it can pick up pre-cancerous changes in the cervix and gives doctors the opportunity to prevent cervical cancer occurring.
"The pre-cancerous changes the smear test picks up don't cause any symptoms, so regular screening is the only chance doctors have to detect them."
The new figures show that considerably less women are screened for cervical cancer in Northern Ireland than in other regions of the UK.
Coverage – which is the proportion of women of target age who have had a cervical smear in the last five years – was 72 per cent for Northern Ireland in the most recent five-year period for which statistics are available.