NHS screening change ‘would cut smears’

Professor Peter Sasieni, a Cancer Research UK scientist at Queen Mary, University of London, has suggested that women would need far fewer smears if the National Health Service (NHS) switched to a new way of screening for cervical cancer. “With good uptake of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine we can now start to move away from conventional testing”, said Professor Sasieni. The new type of check tests for HPV, subtypes of which are known to be associated with cervical cancer. “Girls who have already had the jab would only need the new type of smear test twice in their lifetime and unvaccinated women would halve their number of checks from 12 to 6”, he …