Health News

Research reveals that nearly 2,800 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer every year while 1,000 women die because of the cervical cancer disease. Nearly 1 in every 5 women in UK are falling prey to the dangerous cervical cancer because of their negligence of free smear tests conducted by NHS. Almost 1000 women die every year because of this cancer and none of them have undergone any screening test before they actually found they are infected by the disease. It is estimated that earlier screening would save 4,500 lives a year in England.

After breast cancer, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women aged 25 to 50 resulting in nearly 270,000 deaths worldwide. Cervical cancer is a kind of cancer which begins in the cervix and leads to symptoms such as abnormal vaginal bleeding. It is caused by the persistent infection with HPV acronym for Human Papilloma Virus which are a group of viruses and include more than 100 types. These viruses are normally spread through sexual contact and are often classified as oncogenic and non-oncogenic.

A recent survey conducted by YouGov among 2,718 women reveals that nearly 39 percent of the women had either missed their appointments or were late. About 30 percent of women said that they found it hard to find a convenient time to attend the smear test and some opinionated that the NHS should have flexible times to conduct the smear tests. Some women even felt embarrassing or had bad experience to ask for permission from their superiors for a day off during the office hours. These are quite a few of the excuses given by the women when asked to attend a free smear test. The health resources believe that nearly 75% of the cases can be avoided with a regular screening for the cervical smear tests. The younger women are more reluctant and struggle to make appointments for the smear tests.

There was an upsurge in the rate of women attending the cervical smear tests after the death of the famous reality TV star Jade Goodey infected with Cervical cancer in 2008. The tragic death of Jade Goodey has become an alarming sound for the entire nation and the number of women attending the checks have picked up tremendously. Women were attending cervical screening programme either through an invitation from NHS or GP's and even their own personal requests. Women between the age group of 25-49 who are living in England are invited for a regular cervical cancer test for every 3 years while women from the age group of 50-64 were invited for every 5 years by the NHS.

Australian researchers have found the vaccine for prevention of this Cervical cancer and was experimented on young female children between the age groups of 9 -14 before the sexual activity begins and they were able to reduce the cervical abnormalities. However, the research is still under study to determine its effectiveness for the higher age groups.