Cervical Cancer Screening

Cancer Screening Evaluation Unit (DoH)

Section: Section of Epidemiology

Screening for cervical pre-invasive disease (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia) is a long established national screening programme. A substantial amount of screening has been conducted since the 1960s and a national call/recall system inviting all women (aged 20-64, now 25-64), was established in 1988. 

Our current work includes:

• A cohort study of two million women to study the effectiveness of different screening protocol
• The development of statistical methods for measuring the performance of  cytopathology laboratories
• A randomised trial of automated (computerised) smear reading versus manual smear reading

Evaluation of the National Cervical Screening Programme

RG Blanks, SM Moss, DA Coleman, A Sanchez, N. Kingston, AJ Swerdlow

The Unit is conducting a cohort study of more than two million women from a number of Primary Care Trusts. The study will link data from individual women resident in these Primary Care Trusts with laboratories and cancer registries and will examine the effectiveness of three-yearly versus five-yearly screening, the benefit of inviting women >50 years of age with a history of negative smears and the use of opportunistic smear taking within the national programme.

External Funding: Department of Health