title: Benefits and harms of cervical screening from age 20 years compared with screening from age 25 years.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  To quantify the benefits (cancer prevention and down-staging) and harms (recall and excess treatment) of cervical screening starting from age 20 years rather than from age 25 years.
  
  
  METHODS
  We use routine screening and cancer incidence statistics from Wales (for screening from age 20 years) and England (screening from 25 years), and unpublished data from the National Audit of Invasive Cervical Cancer to estimate the number of: screening tests, women with abnormal results, referrals to colposcopy, women treated, and diagnoses of micro-invasive (stage 1A) and frank-invasive (stage IB+) cervical cancers (under three different scenarios) in women invited for screening from age 20 years and from 25 years.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Inviting 100,000 women from age 20 years yields an additional: 119,000 screens, 20,000 non-negative results, 8000 colposcopy referrals, and an extra 3000 women treated when compared with inviting from age 25 years. Screening from age 20 years prevents between three and nine frank invasive cancers and between 0 and 23 cancers in total (depending on the scenario). A cumulative increase of nine stage IB+ cancers corresponds to an annual rate increase of 0.9 per 100,000 women aged 20-29 years.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To prevent one frank invasive cancer, one would need to do between 12,500 and 40,000 additional screening tests in the age group 20-24 years and treat between 300 and 900 women.
authors: Centre for Cancer Prevention, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Bart's and The London School of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6BQ, UK.
authors: R
authors: R
authors: Landy
authors: Centre for Cancer Prevention, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Bart's and The London School of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6BQ, UK.
authors: H
authors: H
authors: Birke
authors: Centre for Cancer Prevention, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Bart's and The London School of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6BQ, UK.
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Castanon
authors: Centre for Cancer Prevention, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Bart's and The London School of Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6BQ, UK.
authors: P
authors: P
authors: Sasieni
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D003127:Colposcopy; D055088:Early Detection of Cancer / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D004739:England / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D018570:Risk Assessment; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D014626:Vaginal Smears / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D014852:Wales / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult