Young women ‘dying’ over cancer delay

YOUNG women are dying needlessly because the Government has delayed setting up a national cervical cancer screening service, a conference heard yesterday.

It must stop dithering about rolling the service out and start saving the lives of women with young families, the Irish Cancer Society (ICS) said.

Ireland has one of the highest death rates in the world from cervical cancer and the ICS is now leading a health and trade union lobby in calling for the immediate introduction of a countrywide scheme.

A conference hosted by the ICS in Dublin yesterday heard that Britain’s cervical screening programme is saving up to 5,000 lives a year. Consultant gynaecologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London Patrick Walker who has been heavily involved in the screening programme, pointed out the incidence of the disease and the number of deaths have been halved since it was introduced in Britain 15 years ago.

ICS chief executive John McCormack said the Government must accept the medical and hidden costs of treating cervical cancer were far more expensive than the implementation of nationwide screening: “We must not let women suffer and die needlessly from this wholly preventable disease.”

Cancer of the cervix is the second most common cancer among women worldwide and Ireland has one of the highest rates in western Europe. Latest figures show there were 1,090 new cases of cervical pre-cancer, 193 cases of cervical cancer and 65 deaths from the disease in Ireland in 2000.

The ICS argues to achieve an 80% reduction in cervical cancer in the Irish population there must be an organised programme where women in the relevant age group are invited for screening every three to five years.

Dr Gráinne Flannelly, a consultant gynaecologist and a member of the ICS’s medical board, said 30% of women with a high-grade abnormality of the cervix that is ignored for 10 years would develop cancer.

“Women have no way of knowing that they have developed an abnormality until they have a smear test because it does not cause any symptoms,” she said.

“We know there is a large cohort of women who are not up to date with their smears. The real horrible thing about this is it is a young woman’s disease,” she said.

Dr Flannelly said the Government had now reached a crossroads where they had to decide whether to roll out a national programme. “We have a health strategy for equality and fairness and it is patently unfair that 934,000 are at an increased risk of getting cervical cancer,” she said.