Podcast: Screening, prevention and early detection of gynaecological cancers.

In this podcast Professor Emma Crosbie highlights her work in supporting the uptake of life-saving cervical screening and the unintentional biases in funding for male and female cancers. Womb and cervical cancer can be overlooked meaning these women’s cancers are poorly-funded compared to cancers that affect both men and women or men alone.

Cancer Research UK reported a 75% reduction in the number of deaths from cervical cancer in the UK over the last 40 years; a figure that can be linked to the introduction of a national cervical screening programme. 

Despite the success of screening, the number of women in the UK that are attending their screening appointments is declining. Anecdotal evidence suggests that barriers to participation could be embarrassment, inconvenience and a fear of being examined.

In this podcast, Emma explains how research at Manchester is exploring ways to increase the uptake of cervical screening and improve research into womb cancer. This includes trialling Lynch syndrome testing in patients with cancer and raising awareness of less well-known types of the disease.