Dr. Helen Lambkin:

I can give some information but I could not give an exact percentage. The aim of any screening programme is to reduce the overall rates of cervical cancer, preferably by 100%, over many years. If one has a very good cervical screening programme, one would hope to reduce it by perhaps 80%. The UK has had a very effective screening programme since the 1980s over its whole population, where they have reduced the overall rate by at least 50%. The introduction of HPV testing will not completely cure cervical cancer but it might allow it to be detected more effectively and more quickly than with the cervical smear alone.

It should also be borne in mind that it is a period of huge change for all screening programmes. First, we are moving towards HPV testing as a new way of investigating. Cervical cytology has been the test for 50 years so this is a significant change for all national programmes to introduce that. Second, vaccination is now in place. Now that girls are being vaccinated in most countries, it will have an impact on the number of cases of cervical cance, which should drop and hopefully by a dramatic level. There is lots of research on change. Changing programmes is a massive undertaking which takes years. It is not feasible to follow recommendations such as stopping the sending of samples. It must be planned very carefully and it would take a three to five year programme review and alteration. If there were errors in one lab, they might be remedied by introducing additional quality control measures and so on. Switching to HPV testing is not a panacea. There continue to be many other considerations, research and tracking of the types in the population, and so on.