Cervical queue grows

Press, 17 December 1988, Page 4

Cervical queue grows

PA Auckland Nearly 800 women with precancerous growths of the cervix are waiting to be diagnosed at National Women’s Hospital, according to the hospital’s medical superintendent. Dr Gabrielle Collison.. About 785 women are waiting for colposcopies (cervical examinations) compared with 528 early last month. Most of those women were waiting between 12 to 18 months for diagnosis. Doctors feared some

women may develop invasive cancer while they waited, she said. Staff and resource shortages meant hundreds of women with positive smears could not be seen immediately. Dr Collison said 749 women with mild and moderate lesions were waiting to be seen. Patients with mild lesions were waiting up to 18 months and those with more advanced lesions between nine and 12 months. Thirty-six women with carcinoma in situ (severe lesions) were waiting

up to 12 weeks, when doctors said they should be seen immediately. C.I.S. is a lesion on the surface of the cervix which may lead to invasive cancer if untreated. The hospital’s obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr Mark Insull, said one in five women could develop invasive cancer if they were left long enough. Women were being left with the mental anguish of not knowing if they would develop cancer over Christmas, he said.