Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 2 May 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

National Cervical Screening Programme: Department of Health, HSE, CervicalCheck and the National Cancer Control Programme

9:00 am

Mr. Tony O'Brien:

I will answer that. Later this year there will be a change away from cytology to the HPV test for primary screening. This will have the effect that the cytology capacity required by the programme will fall from approximately 280,000 cases per annum to 50,000 to 70,000 per annum. This is because if the HPV test is negative, the patient or client will simply return to routine HPV testing. If it is positive, that is, if HPV is detected, it will be followed up by cytology. The expectation is that will be in the range of 50,000 to 70,000 cases, which is less than the number of cytology tests currently being conducted onshore.

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