Campaigns which aim to lower the age for smear tests "do more harm than good", according to an article in a leading medical journal.
Glasgow GP Margaret McCartney said there is "confusion" about smear tests both among the public and the medical profession.
Writing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) she said that recent high-profile campaigns to lower the age of cervical screening are "understandable".
But she said that it is "clear" that these cases presented to their doctors with symptoms of cervical cancer and the patients should have been referred for diagnostic tests, not smears. Cervical screening could have in fact delayed referral for diagnostic tests, she added.
At present, women in England, Wales and Northern Ireland aged 25 to 60 are offered cervical screening tests every three to five years. The ages vary slightly in Scotland but will be amended from next year to be in line with other parts of Britain.
Earlier this month MPs debated cervical cancer screening after more than 320,000 people signed an e-petition calling for the smear test to be offered to women aged 16 and above.
Dr McCartney wrote: "From the news reports available, it's clear that the women in recent high-profile cases presented to their doctors with symptoms of cancer. Screening wasn't what they needed. It would have only delayed referral for appropriate diagnostic tests.
"NHS guidelines recommend history-taking, examination, and swabs or referral to hospital for such young women with symptoms. Smear tests do not feature."
She said that screening and diagnostic tests are often confused among the media, the health profession and the general public.
And campaigns to lower the age of screening would "leave a useless legacy", she wrote.
"These campaigns may do more harm than good because they haven't understood who screening is for," she said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article