Renewed efforts to get women to undergo regular pap tests are underway with a new poster campaign in Forth Valley as a part of Tennessee's participation in the nationwide observance of Cervical Cancer Awareness Month.

A pap test is the only screening test for cervical cancer and there has been a 10 % fall in the number of women going for regular smear tests over the past decade. "We want all Tennessee women to know how important it is to get regular Pap tests to screen for cervical cancer, since early detection is crucial for saving lives of women who develop this disease," said Health Commissioner Susan R. Cooper, MSN, RN. "We also urge young women to take the vital preventive step of getting the HPV vaccine." The HPV vaccine or the vaccine against human papilloma virus is given to teenagers in schools who will also be encouraged to undergo regular pap tests once they are

20 years of age. Cervical cancer is symptomless and painless until it reaches an advanced stage. The only way of detecting the disease in the earlier stages when the disease is easily treatable is by undergoing pap tests.

HPV can infect any woman once she is sexually active and women are encouraged to begin getting annual pap tests from the age of 21 or even earlier and repeat it every three years. "Getting the HPV vaccine, regular pap tests and following your health care provider's recommendations are the best ways to help eliminate cervical cancer in Tennessee," said Debbie Wujcik, RN, PhD, chairperson for the Coalition. "While most HPV infections resolve without medical treatment, any woman in whom the virus doesn't go away on its own or with a history of abnormal Pap tests should continue in follow-up care."

The HPV vaccine has been specifically designed to prevent cancer and the CDC recommends that the vaccine is given to girls and women between the ages of 11 to 26 years to prevent infection with the types of HPV that cause most cervical cancer The vaccine is given in three stages over six months. Since cervical screening was introduced in the late 1980's, new cases of cervical cancer have fallen by 47% while deaths from cervical cancer by more than 50%.

As per recent figures 82.6% of women in the NHS Forth Valley health authority area took the test compared with the Scottish average of 77.9%. However, uptake among women between 20-24 years has seen a significant decline in recent years.

NHS Forth Valley consultant in public health medicine, Rani Balendra, said, "Although the figures from Forth Valley are reassuring, there is an urgent need to increase uptake, particularly in vulnerable groups such as the homeless, travelling people and ethnic minorities.

"Initiatives are under way to discover why the uptake rate has fallen in the past decade and the results of national research will be taken up by NHS Forth Valley."