Cervical cancer rises in U.K.

Press, 14 October 1985, Page 40

Cervical cancer rises in U.K.

NZPA-PA London Cancer of the cervix is rising at “a disturbingly rapid rate” among young women in Britain, a medical expert has said. Sir Richard Doll, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University said that ways of preventing cervical and all the other main cancers would be found within a few decades. Sir Richard told the British Association for the Advancement of: Science’s annual meeting in Glasgow that the most promising measures to prevent cancer in the future would involve immunisation programmes and better nutrition.

“The most exciting prospect is the possibility of printing cancer of the cervix, the second-com-

monest cancer in women on a global scale and one which is still rare but is becoming more common at a disturbingly rapid rate in young women in Britain,” he said. “If it eventually proves possible to make a vaccine it may be possible tb eliminate the disease almost entirely. We are, however, many years away from such a prospect .■ / f *l have no doubt that all the principal cancers from which we now suffer are largely avoidable. and that the means of avoiding them will be discovered in the lifetime of most of us.”

Sir Richardj an expert on cancer statistics who works for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, said cancer ratesi varied in different parts' of the world.