Simple screen test saves 5,000 lives every year
But medics worry too many women are still not having smears
Cervical cancer is the most common cancer in women aged 25 to 35 in Scotland. Around six women in Scotland are diagnosed with the disease every week. Cervical screening is the best protection and saves around 5,000 lives every year in the UK. But many women still don’t attend their smear tests.
Figures from the Scottish Government’s Information Services Department show more than a million women took the test in 2018/19.
Overall, uptake was 73.1%, but women from the most deprived areas were less likely to take part in the screening (67%).
There’s still a lot of confusion around cervical cancer and HPV (the virus is a key risk factor for the disease), according to charity Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust.
Ahead of Cervical Cancer Prevention Week (January 20-26), we asked Imogen Pinnell, health information manager at the Trust, to talk us through some of the main myths around the disease...
Only people with lots of sexual partners get HPV
HPV is extremely common. Pinnell says: “80% of men and women will have some type of HPV at some point in their lives” and as it’s so widespread, anyone who’s been sexually active could get it.
This includes non-penetrative sex, straight sex and gay sex, and using condoms doesn’t provide absolute protection as the virus can be spread via touching, too.
You’d know if you had HPV
While 80% of people will have HPV at some point, the number who experience symptoms is much lower.
Imogen says: “This is because there are no symptoms of simply having HPV and it often doesn’t cause any problem – it just lives in our body for a bit and gets cleared by our immune system. It’s only if you go on to develop a condition linked to HPV that you’d really know.”
So having genital warts means you’re at high risk of cervical cancer?
More than 100 different types of HPV are currently identified, Imogen adds, and the types associated with cervical cancer and genital warts aren’t the same.
“HPV is split into two categories – low-risk and high-risk types – and only a few of these can cause cancer,” she explains.
“If you’ve had genital warts, which is caused by low-risk types, that doesn’t mean you’d then go on to develop cancer or be at higher risk of that happening.”
That said, it is possible to get multiple strains of HPV, so having genital warts doesn’t mean you won’t ever catch a high-risk HPV, too.
People with high-risk HPV will get cancer
More than 3,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer in the UK and Ireland each year and, according to Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust, around 99.7% of all cases are caused by high-risk HPV.
So HPV is certainly a key factor but it’s important to keep the figures in perspective, as the majority of women with HPV will not develop cancer.
Samples during smear tests are now screened for HPV before also being checked for cell changes.
“In around nine in 10 cases, your body will get rid of the HPV within two years,” says Imogen.
“Even high-risk types of HPV, it doesn’t mean you will definitely get cancer because our immune system will often fight the infection off.
“The important thing to remember is that virus isn’t causing any changes at the moment and it could be that your body is simply in the process of fighting it off, so we’ll bring you back in a year to check again.”
Smear tests diagnose cervical cancer
“Smear tests are a preventative test to identify abnormal cell changes before cancer develops,” says Imogen.
You only really need a smear if you have symptoms
Again, the purpose of smears is to detect cell changes before cancer, and therefore any symptoms, develops – so