SCREENING ESSENTIAL FOR EVERYONE WITH A CERVIX Abnormal cells detected and treated early after celebrity death raised awareness of benefits of cervical cancer screening for Dublin woman Ruth
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ike most people of her generation, 46-year-old Ruth O’Mahony became aware of cervical cancer when English personality Jade Goody was diagnosed with the disease. “I was a fan of Big Brother and I remember when she died in 2009. It resonated. At this stage I had two children – the youngest was nine. That story frightened me a lot, and I had it in mind I should have gone for screening at some point,” says Ruth. In the summer of 2009, with the National Cervical Cancer Screening programme
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Ruth O’Mahony
CervicalCheck still in its infancy, Ruth had her first screening test. “The nurse phoned me to say they weren’t happy with the results of the test. I had precancerous cells. She was reassuring on the phone but said I did need to go to the colposcopy clinic in Cork. This was arranged for me and a week or two later I had an appointment in St Finbarr’s. I met the consultant and he was very good at
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explaining what was going on,” said Ruth About six in every 10 people who go on to colposcopy after cervical screening will have abnormal cells detected in their cervix. These abnormal cells are called ‘cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia’ or CIN. CIN is not cancer, but there is a risk it could turn into cancer if left untreated. Ruth’s consultant told her it was likely she had CIN3 – which meant there was a high chance the cells
