To allow more women to participate in the cervical cancer screening programme, a self-test must be sent along. This is an equivalent alternative to the smear at the GP, is in a advice from the Health Council.
Such a self-sampling test makes it easier for women to participate in the population screening. In this way, women who dread having a Pap smear at the doctor’s office can be motivated to participate. As a result, more cases of cervical cancer can be detected early.
Simple test
The self-sampling test can be requested since 2017 if women find it annoying to have a smear made at the GP. If the test is sent along, the threshold for participation will be significantly lowered, the council expects.
Even women who have no problems with a Pap smear can choose to do the test at home. Women can use this to take and send material from their vagina themselves.
It is important that women participate in the research, says President of the Health Council Bart Jan Kullberg in the NOS Radio 1 News. And the test is very simple. “A holder with a plastic brush in it, twist it a few times in the vagina, a simple test, and then send it.”
The laboratory is tested for the HPV virus. Certain types of this human papillomavirus carry a high risk of developing cervical cancer. The virus is also sexually transmitted. If the result of the self-sampling test is positive, a smear must still be taken from the GP.
Less enthusiasm for population screening
The advice comes after a renewal of the test in 2017. Before that, the material was tested for abnormalities in the cells of the cervix. Since 2017, tests have been carried out first for the presence of the harmful types of the HPV virus.
KWF Kankerbestrijding agrees with the advice. Linda Summer of KWF: “50 percent respond to the call and between the ages of 30 and 40 it is even lower. I hope this will increase it. We call on you to participate, it could save your life.”
200 women die every year from the effects of cervical cancer, she says. 800 women get it. “Girls can be vaccinated, but that is no reason not to respond to the study. Vaccination protects for 75 percent.”
Participation in the population screening was already low before 2017. About 65 percent of the women answered the call. Since 2017, that percentage has fallen to 56 percent. The cause of this is unclear.
11 percent of the women who took part in the study requested the self-sampling test. Of those who tested positive and received a call to still have a Pap smear, almost 10 percent did not respond.
Unfounded concern
Due to the renewal of the screening, more women with cervical cancer and its precancerous stages are found. On the other hand, since that time more women have also been referred to the gynecologist who later turn out not to have cervical cancer (or pre-cancerous conditions).
“They are unduly worried and burdened with additional research, sometimes even leading to unnecessary surgery,” says Kullberg. “Which women should be forwarded is a matter of advancing insight.”
The Health Council recommends using more specific criteria for referral to a gynaecologist. “A harmless form of the virus does not have to lead to that. But with troubled cells you will always be forwarded.”
In addition, the Council recommends investigating whether computer-aided screening can be used, a method in which the assessment of abnormal cells is partly automated.
Cervical cancer mainly occurs in women between the ages of 35 and 45. Since 2009, girls have been able to get vaccinated against the HPV virus and since 2019 boys can also get vaccinated.
–
