Cervical cancer prevention study

I also much regret that the journalist's article reporting my interview on preventing cervical cancer upset Miriam Dalmas, who has been a most helpful co-worker. However, I do not agree with her that the journalist's report contained opinions and conclusions outside the content and scope of our audit study. Perhaps the most important attribute of a good researcher is to be very clear about the aim of the study being undertaken. The aim of our audit was to provide scientific proof for our thesis that the reason for a relatively unchanged incidence and mortality of Maltese cervical cancer over the last few decades was because the great majority of the cases were appearing in women who were not regularly screened for early stages of the disease. This is what our study confirmed. Not exactly secret rocket science, but still useful.

Maltese cervical cancer screening, offered free on the National Health Service, but conducted mainly privately, is "opportunistic" in nature, i.e., the patient has got to ask for it or a doctor suggests it, but there is no national organised screening programme that invites and reminds all women between the ages of, say, 20 and 65 years (the "target population") to attend for a cervical smear test. The truth of the matter is that we do not know what percentage of this Maltese female "target population" is being regularly screened (privately and in the NHS). Scientific cancer screening services overseas often claim that screening less than around 70 per cent of the "target population" will not diminish the mortality rate, and it is self-evident that to diminish it to very small figures approaching zero needs screening at the recommended intervals of as close to 100 per cent of the "target population" as possible.

I thought The Times journalist made a reasonably good job of transmitting these important points to the lay public, the keystone in health promotion activities. If Dr Dalmas claims that these points formed no part of our study, which I find very strange, then I'm led to suspect that our paper might have been submitted in an amended form without my knowledge which, with respect, seems to me to be a much worse failing than what she accuses me of.