Life-saving awareness: Data from the National Registry of Cancer of the Ministry of Health show that in 2017, 248 women were diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer in Israel and 717 women with pre-cancerous lesions.
The incidence rates of both invasive and pre-cancerous cervical cancer were higher among Jewish women compared to Arab women. In an international comparison with the other OECD countries, Israel is in a relatively low place in the number of patients with the disease, 33 out of 36 countries.
Among women diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer between 2012 and 2017, the average age of diagnosis was 54 among Jewish women and 50 among Arabs. In terms of trends, morbidity was stable and without significant change throughout the period in both population groups. However, the rate of performance of screening tests for the disease was high in 2018 among women of high socioeconomic status (63%), twice the rate reported in women of low socioeconomic status (32.8%).
During 2017, 81 women in Israel died of invasive cervical cancer. There is no large gap in cervical cancer mortality rates between Jewish and Arab women. The average age at death in cervical cancer in 2017 in Israel was 65 among Jewish women and 58 among Arab women.
The director of the Center for Disease Control at the Ministry of Health, Prof. Little Keinan Boker, says: “The rate of new cases of invasive cervical cancer in Israel has remained stable in recent decades (1996-2017). However, there has been an increase in the incidence of precancerous lesions. Permit for an increase in the performance of Pap surface tests. “
The director general of the Association for the War on Cancer, Moshe Bar-Haim, joined in and said: “The Association for the War on Cancer calls on all systems to work to increase awareness and increase the rate of immunization against the papilloma virus. According to the results of many studies published to date, vaccines can be expected to prevent most high-grade pre-cancerous changes, making the vaccine the main preventative measure today against cervical cancer. If we increase the immunization rate, we could lead to a significant reduction in the number of cancers. “