Leanne Meyler pictured with her cervical cancer awareness pearl. Pic: Jim Campbell
A YOUNG local girl is calling for a review of the approach to cervical cancer screening after her own battle with the disease before Christmas, despite not even being old enough to have a free smear test.
23-year-old Leanne Meyler, from Belvedere Grove has called for a lowering of the minimum age for testing, remarking that if she had waited until the regular age of 25 for hers she would probably be dead.
Leanne spoke out about her experience of cervical cancer during European Cervical Cancer Prevention Week and made the call for a better screening procedure.
The 23-year-old was diagnosed with cervical cancer last September after various tests and treatments:
“I had been getting lots of cramps for about three months but I thought nothing of it, I just thought it was regular woman pain. When I did go to the doctor, they couldn’t find anything wrong after various tests but I was put on four different sets of antibiotics. I eventually asked them to send me to the hospital because nothing was working.”
Since then, Leanne has undergone a rigorous treatment programme and is now waiting on results of scans to determine if she will get the all-clear.
At present, women are usually encouraged to undergo smear tests from the age of 25 up if they are sexually active but Leanne believes that this should be lowered: “I think once someone is sexually active they should be entitled to have the test done.”
She pointed out that people were becoming sexually active at a much younger age now but at present were not entitled to smear tests until they were 25: “They could have had any number of sexual partners before then.”
She remarked that if women get a lump in their breast, cancer is the first thing that is ruled out but this is not the case with cervical cancer: “I know the doctors say that up until the age of 25 a woman’s body is still developing and that could result in abnormal smears but it should be a case of being safe rather than sorry. You clearly can get it before you’re 25.”
[Full, exclusive story in this week’s Echo]