Cervical cancer can be prevented

• Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable and curable of all cancers. Since the introduction of the National Cervical Screening Program, the mortality from cervical cancer has halved..
• A Pap smear every two years can prevent the most common form of cervical cancer in up to 90% of cases and is the best protection against cervical cancer.

The most recent statistics on the National Cervical Screening Program are published in Cervical Screening in Australia 2007-2008. This report shows that:

• In 2007-2008, 3,652,181 Australian women had Pap smears. Of these 3,599,919 (98.6%) were in the target age group 20-69 years.
• The two-year participation rate for the National Cervical Screening Program was 61.2% of women in the target age group in 2007 to 2008.
• The three-year participation rate was 73.9% and the five-year participation rate was 86.3% for the same age group.
• In 2008 the National Cervical Screening Program detected 15,814 women in the target age group with high-grade abnormalities.
• The number of new cases of cervical cancer in Australia has continued to decline. There were 715 new cases in Australia in 2006 compared with 1,092 detected in 1991, at the start of the organised screening program.
• The age-standardised mortality rate from cervical cancer has more than halved since the start of the program, from 3.9 deaths per 100,000 women in 1991 to 1.9 deaths per 100,000 women in 2007.