Cervical screening has saved lives
7/15/2004 London, UK Staff writers Manchester News / and Lancet Britain's cervical screening program is helping save the lives of 5,000 women a year and has prevented a cancer epidemic, experts said today. National screening for cervical cancer started in 1988 after deaths from the disease among women aged under 35 increased three-fold in the previous 30 years. Now researchers have estimated that the lives of 100,000 women born between 1951 and 1970 will be saved thanks to screening. Writing in The Lancet, they said that 15 years ago the country was heading for a devastating outbreak of the disease. But since the introduction of screening, that trend has been reversed, at a cost per life saved of about £36,000. The latest research compared falling death rates from cervical cancer since 1988 against the projected increase if screening had not been introduced. Prof Julian Peto, who led the study for Cancer Research UK, said that changes in sexual behavior since the 1960s led to epidemic levels of sexually transmitted diseases. This meant that the HPV (human papillomavirus) infection - which can go on to cause cervical cancer - became more common among sexually active women. Up to half of young women in Britain have been infected with a high-risk strain of HPV by the time they are 30. The virus usually clears up on its own, but if it persists if can lead to changes in the cells in the cervix which may lead to cancer if untreated. These early [...]