Young women at risk from new cancer

Press, 11 October 1986, Page 13

Young women at risk from new cancer

NZPA London A new, virulent form of cancer of the cervix may cause the death toll among sexually active women to rise 70 per cent, doctors say.

The British Medical Association said that over the last 10 years there had been an epidemic of the pre-cancerous form of the disease, largely among young women.

This epidemic was continuing, and one computer model was predicting a 70 per cent increase in deaths of women under 50 in 10 years. That would take the death toll from 580 now to 1000 a year in that age-group.

The over-all death rate from cancer of the cervix is 2000 a year, but many deaths could be prevented by improved screening. The B.M.A. in a report

on cancer of the cervix, said, “There is some evidence that cervical cancer in the younger woman is more aggressive. “It is not yet possible to determine whether this is true because of the different hormonal status of the pre-menopausal women, or whether we are seeing a new and more virulent variant of the cancer, which is initially present in the sexually more active part of the population.” The report, drawn up by the B.M.A.’s board of science, criticises the “poor record” on screening women in Britain for the early pre-malignant signs of the disease, when the cure rate is virtually 100 per cent.

“In Britain we do not even know what our national screening rate is.

Sixty per cent of women with cervical cancer have never been screened,” it says.

The report calls for the interval between normal smears to be cut from five to three years, starting in younger women and carrying over to middle age. Reluctant women and those in highrisk groups should be specially targeted.

Department of Health and Social Security guidelines suggest that screening should be concentrated oh women aged over 35 because they have the highest death rate from cancer of the cervix.

But the report says the focus should shift to younger women because they now have the highest rate of the pre-malignant form of the disease.

Screening them was more likely to result in prevention of the disease rather than detection of cancer, which had only a 50 per cent cure rate. The report also calls for automation to be introduced in screening laboratories to cope with the backlog of smear tests. “The work is labourintensive, monotonous, and fatiguing. Errors areeasily made and a false negative rate of about 10 per cent is common,” it said. Other steps recommended include adequate resources for computerised call and recall of women for smear tests,, and the introduction of safeguards to ensure that abnormal results were correctly followed up.