THERE has been a sharp fall in the number of young Australian women being detected with signs of early cervical cancer since the introduction of the Gardasil vaccine.
CERVICAL cancer cases and deaths in Australia remain very low by international standards, a new report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) says.
The report, Cervical Screening in Australia 2012-13, says 682 new cervical cancer cases have been diagnosed in 2011 and 143 women have died from the disease in 2012. This equates to between nine and 10 new cases and two deaths per 100,000 women each year, AIHW spokesman Justin Harvey says. But while the figures have halved between the introduction of the National Cervical Screening Program in 1991 and 2002, they do not apply in equal measure to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women. Their rate of new cases of cervical cancer is twice that of non-indigenous women, and the death rates are four times as high. Mr Harvey says this is largely because of the introduction of the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination program in schools for young girls in 2007 and subsequent extension to teenage boys. Vaccination and screening are effective because most types of cervical cancer have a precancerous stage, lasting for many years.