Video credit: Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust
It’s Cervical Screening Awareness Week, an opportunity to remind friends, colleagues and family how life–changing taking the test could be.
Cervical screening tests, previously known as smear tests, save 5000 lives a year.
We understand it can be daunting, so it’s fine for the person having the test to take someone along with them for support.
The screening test is not carried out to find cancer, but to detect changes to the cells of the cervix, called cervical abnormalities or pre–cancer. Results very rarely mean cancer and 90 to 94% of all screening results come back normal.
Having regular cervical screening offers the best protection against developing cervical cancer, which 3000 women a year are diagnosed with. It’s the most common cancer in women aged 35 and under.
Cervical cancers are caused by persistent infections with a virus called high–risk human papillomavirus (HPV) in 99.7% of cases. HPV is a very common virus transmitted through skin to skin contact in the genital area. Around 80% of sexually active adults will be infected with some type of HPV in their lives. However, for the majority of women this will not result in cervical cancer. While HPV infection is common, cervical cancer is rare.
Most changes seen to the cells won’t lead to cervical cancer and may go back to normal on their own but in some cases, the abnormal cells need to be removed so they don’t become cancerous.
All women who are registered with a GP are invited for cervical screening:
aged 25 to 49 – every three years
aged 50 to 64 – every five years
over 65 – only women who haven’t been screened since age 50 or those who have recently had abnormal tests
Cervical screening doesn’t prevent all cases of cervical cancer. Screening is a personal choice and you have the right to choose not to attend.
It’s time to test and women should get the #timetotest too from their employers when they get the invitation.
More information
Find out about the screening test on NHS Choices for more information and for the symptoms of cervical cancer.
The Cervical Screening Awareness Week campaign is led by Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust.