‘Jade effect’ encourages women to have test

NEARLY three quarters of all Scottish women eligible for cervical screening have taken the test within the last three and a half years, according to the latest NHS figures.

The statistics from the Information Services Division of NHS Scotland found that just over 390,000 cervical screening tests were processed within the programme, which is an increase of approximately 4 per cent in the last three years since 2007-8.

Nationwide, some 73.6 per cent of women were screened, while the Shetland health board region witnessed the highest uptake rate of 80.6 per cent. By contrast, the lowest was found in Greater Glasgow, where just 70.1 per cent were screened.

The last quarter of 2008-9 heralded the largest number of screening tests processed in any quarter since the start of the programme, with 133,000 women tested.

That rise has been attributed to the impact of the publicity surrounding the diagnosis and subsequent death in 2009 of Jade Goody, a contestant in the reality TV programme Big Brother. The introduction of the HPV vaccination programme was also cited as a factor.

Of those tests processed throughout the three-and-a-half-year window, just over 97 per cent were of satisfactory quality, with 90.8 per cent of those having a negative result. Some 7.9 per cent had a low grade cell change, while the remaining 1.3 per cent had high grade cell changes. Overall, the incidence of invasive cancer of the cervix has decreased by about 47 per cent between 1986 and 2009.

The screening programme, introduced in 1988, is offered to women aged between 20 and 60 every three years to identify cell changes that could develop to be cancerous.

Any abnormalities flagged up at the testing stage can be addressed by treatment, which is usually very effective.