Cervical cancer: Nottingham woman calls for earlier smear tests

A woman with incurable cervical cancer has called for smear tests to be routinely offered to women under 25.

Paige Hart, 25, from Nottingham, said she visited her GP five times before she was diagnosed in November 2018, aged 24, when it was already in an advanced stage.

The cancer has now spread to her lymph nodes, stomach and chest and she is on a six-month course of chemotherapy, she added.

Currently women are not usually offered smear tests below the age of 25.

Professor Anne Mackie, of the UK National Screening Committee, which advises the government on smear tests, said cervical cancer in women under 25 is "very rare".

"The benefits of screening these younger women, most of who have already been vaccinated against the two most important types of HPV that causes cervical cancer, are small," she said.