Cervical cancer screening in Austria

Austria's target population of women aged 20 years and over consists of 3 m illion people. Then is mainly opportunistic screening, except in one county with a target population of 120 000, in which organised screening has been practiced for several years. There are approximately 1.5 million smears an nually, exclusively taken by gynaecologists. The recommended screening inte rval is 1 year. The slides are screened by MTs with a maximum workload of 1 2 000 smears annually in 65 laboratories, mainly headed by pathologists. As shown by Vutuc and colleagues (Wien Klin Wochenschr 1999, 111, 354-359) th e opportunistic screening system covers 60% of the Austrian target populati on leaving an unsatisfactorily high rate of underserved, mainly postmenopau sal, women. Nevertheless, the cervical cancer. mortality rate could have be en decreased to one third during the past 40 years. (C) 2000 Published by E lsevier Science Ltd.