A new report from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has shown that people who are detected with breast, cervical or bowel cancers through national cancer screening programs have better survival rates than those found to have cancer by other means.
The report, Analysis of Cancer Outcomes and Screening Behaviour for National Cancer Screening Programs in Australia, brings together data on the three cancers for which there are national, population-based screening programs — breast, cervical and bowel.
Spokesperson for AIHW, Justin Harvey said the report examined survival outcomes of people with those cancers to better understand the benefits of screening.
“It also looks at people’s patterns of screening for cancer, including how receiving the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine affects participation in cervical screening,” Mr Harvey said.
“Almost 7,000 cases of cervical cancer were diagnosed in Australia in the decade to 2012. About five per cent of these cases were diagnosed through cervical screening, with these women having an 87 per cent lower risk of dying than those who had never had a Pap test.”
He said a similar pattern had been seen for bowel and breast cancer.
Mr Harvey noted that the aim of population screening programs was to detect disease earlier and improve outcomes for individuals, thereby reducing the overall burden in the community.
“The report also looks at Australians’ screening behaviour and shows that women vaccinated against HPV are more likely to participate in cervical screening than unvaccinated women,” he said.
‘This suggests that women who are vaccinated against HPV are either more aware of the need to participate in cervical screening, or are more likely to take part in healthy behaviour generally.”
The Institute’s 110-page report can be accessed at this PS News link.
