National Cervical Screening Program monitoring report 2025

Cervical cancers diagnosed by time since last screen

Definition

Number of females aged 25–74 diagnosed with cervical carcinoma in a calendar year categorised into never screened, lapsed screening, and recently screened based on time since last screen.

Rationale

This is a measure of the burden of disease from a lack of participation in the screening program. Time since last screen is used to categorise all females diagnosed with cervical carcinoma as never screened, lapsed screening, or recently screened. Most cervical carcinomas have historically been diagnosed in those who have never screened, which is evidence of the benefit of participation in cervical screening.

Only cervical carcinomas (cervical cancers of epithelial origin) are included, as cervical cancers not of epithelial origin are not expected to be detected through cervical screening.

• Never screened is defined as no record of having had a screening test in Australia prior to cancer diagnosis.
• Lapsed screening is defined as last screening test >5.5 and ≤7.5 years, >7.5 and ≤10 years or >10 years prior to cancer diagnosis.
• Recently screened is defined as last screening test ≤5.5 years prior to cancer diagnosis.

Data considerations

Calculation of this performance indicator requires linkage between data from the NCSR and data from the Australian Cancer Database (ACD) and more than 5 years to have passed since the inception of the renewed NCSP to allow this performance indicator to be measured as per the definition.