AIBU to be really pee'd off about the Sophie Jones petition?

[creampie]

This poor girl appears to have died from cervical cancer following delayed diagnosis. She apparently presented at her GPs surgery asking for a smear test, but was denied one on the basis that she was too young for it to be warranted. Since her death, her family are campaigning for smear tests to be offered to all girls from 16 up.

When someone dies, I understand families are desperate to make that death meaningful, and campaigns like this seem like a good idea, but there are so many holes in this story that I'm amazed it's made it anywhere near a newspaper. It's also floating its way around Facebook.

Firstly, smear testing is incredibly unreliable in under 25s, to the point where any results are pretty meaningless. Secondly, it's not a test for cancer, it's a test for abnormal cells in a population with no symptoms. Anyone who has symptoms, as Sophie did, should be offered something completely different (I'm not sure whether she was offered this or not, which is something they would have every right to be angry about if not) in order to look for cervical cancer. Why has no one pointed this out to the campaigners? Or if they have, why is there a petition for this?

I'm not sure whether I'm more cross about the 130,000 odd signatures from people who are advocating action on something that they don't really understand, or the appalling media mis-reporting, which suggests smear tests would have helped. Honestly, why do people think that their opinion should have any bearing on health policy? I don't think my opinion should have any bearing on agricultural policy, for example, because I know naff all about it. Why is health so different?

AIBU to be cross with the media and the starters of this campaign (although slightly more sympathetic with these) for starting a campaign based on very little evidence, knowing that gp surgeries across the country are now going to be inundated with requests from the worried well?

Those guidelines were not followed in the family friends case.

I found out the details (was a bit sketchy as she wasn't my friend)

She had a baby at 23 & had abnormal bleeding after the birth (not sure whether post coital or inter menstruatal) but no investigation was done until 2 years later at the age if 25 when she went for her first smear.

By then it was too late & she died 6 months later.

Her mother had exactly the same at the same age but was treated successfully as the smear picked up abnormal dells early.

Its 20 in wales...

YANBU. I thought this myself.

I think the shocking bit isn't that she wasn't given/allowed a smear, but that proper investigation didn't take place when she presented with symptoms. Two separate issues in my book. Unless, she presented late with symptoms?

Very sad in any case.

I'm very biased as I was treated for pre cancerous cells at the age of 23, no family history, just what was picked up from a normal smear. As far as I remember I started having them at around 18 years old.
I do agree that the petition seems by simplistic though. (And really do think they should have chosen a different name for it..)

YANBU. This has been annoying me too.

There was a discussion about it on the Guardian website yesterday. Some posters who were doctors came on and said just what you said, namely that a smear test is a screening test and that if anyone has symptoms, she should be referred to a gynaecologist for a colposcopy. Then various other people came on and said, "BUT A WOMAN HAS DIED. HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF IT WAS YOUR DAUGHTER?" and much else in that vein. Some people are impossible to reason with.

Yanbu

I'd also like to point out that HPV vaccine does not prevent Cervical cancer. I had cervical cancer and I am HPV negative. Slightly off topic, but when the HPV vaccine is promoted as a cervical cancer vaccine it frigging infuriates me.

If smears tests for under 25s are so unreliable why are they available from the age of 20 in Wales?

It doesn't sound like a smear test alone would have saved poor Sophie but she should have been treated better than she was by the sound of it. Doesn't sound like she was taken seriously.

I don't know whether YABU or YANBU.

I wasn't aware of the ahem imitations of smear test and the need instead for whatever the other test is that was mentioned as an alternative.

You've piqued my interest though so I'm off to do some reading up. Thank you

Hpv vaccine does protect against cervical cancer - it lower s the risk. cant reduce it to zero

Joys a colposcooy is an investigstive test

Yanbu in this case.
However as someone who had CIN3 abnormal cell changes picked up through a smear when I was 16 years old and didn't become completely clear until around 12 years later. I do feel the age needs to be lowered back down from 25 for a smear - even if someone doesn't become sexually active until the legal age - that's a long time before a screening test would be done. I know medical research has shown that smears can detect false results at a young age so therefore there's women had treatment without no real need for it but what if it could've saved the lives of the women who have slipped through the net.
The other alternative, where I believe Sophie was badly let down, would be to make sure ANY woman of ANY age was sent to the colposcopy clinic when presenting symptoms to their GP.

Over 18 and every 2 years in Australia for smear tests....

I'm not so sure that the reasons for only testing from 25 are sound, when other sensible countries test earlier. I can't help thinking the main reason for stopping earlier testing was cost-cutting.

I had my first smear test aged 20 in the UK, in 1995, and I was astonished to find out recently that they now only test from age 25.

A screwing test has 2 elements, sensitivity and specificity. Sensitivity means picking up all the people who definitely have the disease. Specificity means not accidentally picking up people who don't have the disease.

Yes, if we screened everyone then the sensitivity would be great. But the specificity would be terrible. Lots if girls would be picked up unnecessarily and sent for painful, invasive extra tests at huge cost to the NHS, for no reason.

Yes, it's about money on the one hand, but it's also about not putting people through a horrible, scary process for no reason.

What we should be doing is taking young people more seriously when they present with symptoms of cervical cancer, rather than assuming that its a disease for older women. The massive majority of women would be harmed by increased screening, not helped. Not to mention the vast numbers of other people who would lose their part of the NHS budget in favour of increasing the screening program.

*screening not screwing!

Why do other countries do it earlier then? 20 in Wales, 18 [and more frequent checks] in Australia. Not looked at other countries but are they wrong??
Glad I was checked from 18.

Just read an article. Some countries offer it even later than 25. [Bulgaria=31].
USA 2 years after first sexually active....

I'm another person who had CIN3 picked up by non-routine smears when I was 20 years old. A local hospital was running some research into problems for sexually active teens and young women, which I was lucky enough to be signed up for. I had smear tests every 6 months and went from clear to CIN3 in that short space of time.

The HPV vaccine will go some way to helping, but as others have said, it has gained the misnomer of an anti-cervical cancer vaccine, rather than an anti-genital warts vaccine.

The petition is about a young woman who had asked for a smear but been refused. It's not about routine smear testing under 25s, it's about making the smear test available to under-25s.

I had stage 3 pre cancerous cells at my first smear age 25. Being that it was my first smear, there was no way of knowing how long I had had abnormal cells (I think they said it can take up to 10 years to possibly develop into cancer).
I felt that if I had had an earlier smear, I would have had a better idea of how long the cells had been abnormal. It was explained by a doctor that before they raised the age, so many young women were having unneccassery treatment, due to hormone changes at this age presenting themselves as abnormalities.
I'm really on the fence with this one.

Thank you for explaining this so well, from reading media reports I was horrified that the age has been raised to 25 but didn't realise why screening wouldn't be as effective you get than this.

More education is definitely needed on the subject, I'll admit I'm clueless myself. I've just recently been diagnosed with CIN3 cells and have a colposcopy and biopsy scheduled for next week, reading the replies from a couple of other ladies who've had this has eased my mind, my gp had me fairly worried.

* why screening wouldn't be effective YOUNGER than this...

YANBU.

From what I've read she didn't need a smear, she needed referring to colposcopy.

If that should have happened and didn't then that is of course a tragedy.

But referring all sexually active women for smears from an early age is inappropriate; a smear is a SCREENING tool and not a clinical investigation.

Some women are falsely reassured that a normal smear result means all is well and will stay that way until their next smear. Of course for most women this is the case, however a smear test is essentially just a snapshot of your cervix ON THAT DAY and any changes in symptoms such as bleeding between periods, bleeding after sex, unusual discharge or pain need investigating.

But that doesn't necessarily mean a smear is the investigation that's needed.

I've just verified this before saying it earlier but one of my sisters was tested around 8 years ago (18yrs old) because of the fact that I had CIN3 so young, our other sister also had them at roughly 19 years old and our mum has had problems throughout her whole adult life with the same. Mum can't remember when she was last on a 'normal' roll call for a smear and often talks about asking them to remove her bits to get rid of it once and for all.

In the UK I get called every 3 years now but the country where I currently live, it's standard once a year from when you first start having sex so that's where I have them as I'm too paranoid to leave it so long.