A proven way to prevent cervical cancer is to have cervical screening to find pre-cancers before they can turn into invasive cancer. This is called a smear test and every woman over the age of 25 who is registered at a GP is invited to have one every 3 years; if you’re younger you can still make a request through your GP.

Cervical screening prevents 75% of cervical cancers from developing which is why three quarters of women attend screenings when invited. Getting that final quarter of women that don’t currently turn up for testing is the goal for Cervical Cancer Prevention Week.

Everyday in the UK 9 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 3 women lose their lives to it.

There are brilliant charities like Jo’s Trust and Eve Appeal doing fantastic work to help change those statistics; here are some of their tips on what you can do to make sure fewer women die from cervical cancer –

• Be aware of the signs and symptoms of the disease.
• Promptly attend your cervical screening when invited. For most women, the best protection is regular screening
• For girls and young women to know where their cervix is – a survey conducted by The Eve Appeal showed that 45% of women were unable to accurately label the cervix on a diagram!
• Everyone – (yes, men too!) to know how to prevent it and ways to support our life-saving research and awareness raising campaigns.

Cervical Cancer Prevention Week runs every January; the 2018 dates are 22-28 January.

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