58 women were unaware of being treated for cancer
Up to 58 women were unaware they had previously been treated for cancer until alerted by a letter inviting them to partake in a review connected to the national cervical cancer screening programme.
The HSE has confirmed the 58 women have called its helpline with queries in relation to micro-invasive cancer treatment, after receiving the invite.
The HSE said the women were “unclear” as to why they were being asked to participate in the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) review.
They received the invites because they had been recorded on the National Cancer Registry as having had micro-invasive cancer treatment.
The HSE said “not all women who received this treatment may have been aware that this was classified as such”.
The HSE did not quantify how many were unaware but said that 58 women had contacted its helpline.
The HSE yesterday said that it “wishes to apologise for any distress that this may have caused to women who received these letters”.
The HSE said it could confirm that a small, unspecified number of queries related to letters to women “whose initial diagnosis was carcinoma in situ”.
“Also known as CIN 3, this is a type of pre-cancer which is treated at colposcopy and does not usually require further treatment and surgery,” said the HSE.
“As these [CIN 3] cases do not relate to cervical cancer but rather pre-cancer, they will not form part of the expert panel review.”
Stephen Teap, from Carrigaline, Co Cork, whose wife Irene was twice given incorrect smear test results and subsequently died in July 2017 of cervical cancer, said that while the screening programme was “doing what it was supposed to do” by picking up cancers, “the communications aspect let the women down again”.
“But at least they are alive and able to pick up the phone.”
A report published last month was critical of a failure by CervicalCheck to inform women diagnosed with cervical cancer and who had availed of the screening service that they were part of an audit and that, in the case of 221 of the women, they had received an incorrect smear test result.
The RCOG review panel has been asked by the Department of Health to provide women who participated in CervicalCheck, and who developed cervical cancer, with independent clinical assurance about the timing of their diagnosis and treatment.
The HSE is providing logistical support and wrote to women asking them to consent to partake in the review, which includes all those who have developed cancer notified to CervicalCheck or registered with the National Cancer Registry at the beginning of May 2018 and who had been screened by CervicalCheck prior to their diagnosis.
This includes women who received micro-invasive treatment, defined as “cancer that has not yet spread locally” and which “rarely develops into invasive cancer”.
The HSE said yesterday the RCOG support team had a dedicated information line to answer queries from women or their families arising from the process. It apologised that some consent letters contained wrong return address information and said it was an error by the distribution company.
