Presejalni program ZORA po petih letih delovanja že kaže pomembne javnozdravstvene rezultate

Five years after the introduction of the cervical cancer screening program organized in Slovenia at the national level, its results may be observed in public health. The first one is a good compliance of women, i.e. the proportion of women aged 20–64 who had at least one PAP smear taken in a three-year period which is the recommended screening interval in our country. In the last three years (2006–2008), the compliance was 71.2%. Looking at five years, which is the screening interval in Finland and in Great Britain, the compliance is 82.1%. In Britain, in the same period, the compliance was 78.6%, and in Finland, it has not exceeded 70% for several years. The second public health result is a smaller number of new cervical cancer cases. In five years, the cervical cancer incidence decreased by more than a quarter (28%). In 2003, 209 new cases were registered in the Cancer Registry of Republic of Slovenia, while in 2007, there were 151 new cases. In 2007, 260.684 smears from 235.713 women were registered in the Screening Registry. Altogether 194.163 women (82%) attended screening examination, while others were coming for follow-up or had clinical symptoms. In the histology registry, 8.569 exams were registered; more than half were made for diagnostic purposes. It would certainly be difficult to achieve such good results without great endeavors of all gynecologists at primary health care level, all screeners and cytopathologists in all Slovenian laboratories and all other experts involved in multidisciplinary process of screening, diagnostics and treatment. Their good collaboration in achieving further progress is greatly appreciated.