Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 18 December 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health

Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Independent Expert Panel Review into Cervical Screening: Discussion

Professor Henry Kitchener:

We said that because we identified abnormal cells that had not been originally detected either because high-grade cells were found as opposed to low-grade findings in the slide, or the original slide was negative and we found abnormal cells.

We were able to come to the determination that depending on the length of delay that was engendered by the original result, as opposed to what would have happened with the review result, in a specific number of cases it had exerted an impact and that had the RCOG result been available at the time of the original result, a different course of action would probably have taken place, which might have prevented the disease or led to its diagnosis at an earlier stage.