My late wife would have backed self-testing over cervical cancer – Yorkshire Post letters

AMID the lengthening crisis that the political classes have created over Brexit comes the excellent news that women in Britain will have the opportunity to use self-testing kits in their own homes to test for cervical cancer.

This will reveal any abnormality of cells within the cervix at an early stage.

It is now 13 years since my wife, aged 59, died from the dreadful disease, having been diagnosed late some three years earlier, because of inaccurate screening offered to her annually, a test which concluded wrongly that the cervix was clear of the human papillomavirus (HPV).

I know Janet would have welcomed the introduction of home-based testing to avoid the many thousands of unnecessary deaths which would have the dramatic effect of reversing the sad decline and fall over recent years in the number of women attending for screening.

I would urge the UK National Screening Committee not only to support HPV home self-testing kits for women and girls from 12 to 64, but to include for testing, by this method, all women – including those aged 65 and over.