Remember to get cervical screening tests done regularly

Members of Lancashire Care's Immunisation Team are calling on women to get regularly cervical screening.
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Cervical Screening Awareness Week runs from June 12 to 17 and the occasion is being used to remind people that cervical cancer can kill.

Regular screening and vaccinating young girls against human papillomavirus (HPV), however, helps save thousands of lives every year.

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Pearl Greenwood, Immunisation Team Leader at Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust, said: “We advise women to undergo cervical screening which is not a test for cancer; this is also known as a smear test and we advise them to undergo this every three to five years. If these abnormalities are left untreated they could lead to cancer of the cervix. We know that, on average, cervical screening helps save the lives of approximately 4,500 women in England every year.

“The importance of being vaccinated against HPV which causes 99% of all cervical cancers cannot be stressed enough.

Every day in the UK, eight women are diagnosed with cervical cancer with three dying as a result.

It is the most common cancer in women aged 35 and under. Cervical screening can prevent around 45 percent of cervical cancer cases in women in their 30s, rising with age to 75 percent in women in their 50s and 60s who attend regularly.

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