Dr. Karin Denton:

CervicalCheck appeared to have made a decision in trying to identify the management of which women would have been different if the cytology report had been different that it would have a cut-off at 18 months prior to the diagnosis of cancer. It was basically stating that if the missing of the abnormality occurred 12 months before she was diagnosed with cancer, it would not have made any difference to the final outcome, whereas if it had occurred 20 months before it, it would have. We feel disquiet about this because cancer can progress quite a lot over a period of 18 months. In our view, that might make a significant difference to the outcome. There was certainly one point when this was discussed in a meeting and agreed to as a criterion. What I am still not clear on - we received some more information from HSE on Monday of this week - is how it relates to the group of 221 women. I have not yet been assured on the exact criteria used in identifying them. They were certainly women who had had a diagnosis altered on review. I cannot at this time tell the committee whether there are more who had a diagnosis altered on review and it was held that it would not have made any clinical difference.