300 women with cancer told of ‘discordant’ results in CervicalCheck smears
Review suggests ‘abnormalities’ could have been missed in f irst reading of slides
AS MANY as 300 women diagnosed with cervical cancer have found out for the first time that a review of their results is ‘discordant’ or at odds with their original smear test results.
The Irish Mail on Sunday has learned that just under one third of the 1,051 who agreed to take part in the major review have received the distressing news.
Many of these women, or their families, have discovered they could have learned of abnormalities in their smears prior to receiving their cervical cancer diagnosis. A total of 50 women of the so-called 221+
Women placed in ‘a devastating situation’
group, who were already known to be affected by the scandal, agreed to take part in the review by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology (RCOG) in the UK.
This means hundreds more women could be affected by the scandal, but the report’s full contents are being kept secret until publication is approved.
Dozens of women, or their families in cases where the women have died, have recently contacted the 221+ support group, seeking guidance after receiving their reports.
The review aimed to ‘identify if there was a failure by the National Cervical Screening Programme to detect underlying abnormal cells that could lead to cancer or to intervene at an earlier stage in the development of cancer’.
It’s not yet known how many of the 300 were affected by negligence on behalf of the screening service, if any.
However, these women have been placed in ‘a devastating situation’ after learning they could have known about their cancers earlier and, in some cases, possibly prevented its development.
A source told the MoS: ‘Our understanding is that as many as 300 have been told that their reviewed slides are discordant with their original analysis.
‘For instance, someone who might have thought they had nothing to worry about 10 years ago when their slides were taken, has now been told in 2019 that they had something all along – it just wasn’t read properly and there’s a difference between what they told you then and what we can tell you now.
‘Clearly, that’s a difficult situation for those 300-odd women and their families.’
Paul Reck, 48, who lost his wife Catherine to cancer in 2012 and learned she was one of over 221 women affected by the CervicalCheck scandal last year, received her Royal College of Gynaecology review results on Friday.
Mr Reck told the MoS: ‘It’s two years in April next year [since the scandal broke]; that’s crazy. I’m finding it more and more difficult to deal with. When you see it all written on paper, it brings it all to the fore again and knowing so many other women and families have now been brought into this is awful to think about.’
Solicitor Cian O’Carroll, who represented Vicky Phelan, Emma Mhic Mathúna and Ruth Morrissey, said he has seen the RCOG reports of 10 women outside of his current clients who were already part of the 221+ group.
He said: ‘A lot of people have said this is more distressing than receiving the original results – to find out their diagnosis could have been avoided. The majority [of the reports] seem to talk about a missed opportunity to identify the cancer when it was a pre-cancer.’
A Department of Health spokesman said publication is planned ‘once all women or next of kin have had the opportunity to receive their report’. He said the Minister will not comment until that is done.