During her time in the area, her work included chronic disease management, immunisation and cervical smear testing.

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The petition called on the government to consider dropping the qualifying age for cervical smear tests from 25 to 20.

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The test for high risk HPV is done on the cervical screening sample, which means that women will not notice anything different when they have their regular cervical smear test.

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Defending, John Weate said Parr had been lying to her family about having cancer for 10 years prior to the offences against Ms Briscoe and had begun a "web of lies" after a cervical smear test revealed "unstable cells".

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Other tests -- such as a Pap smear for cervical cancer or a lymph node biopsy for lymphoma -- are also safe.

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In another example a lady developed cervical cancer after failing to attend appointments for smear tests over a nine-year period, despite regular reminders from the practice.

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But only one in a thousand of those in fact have a malignancy and are destined to die from it. (Most of the 4, 000 deaths per year from cervical cancer are in women who either never had a Pap smear or missed having one in the five years before a cancer diagnosis.) Over their lifetimes, 40% of women get a false alarm Pap.

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Professor Kimler said the test was similar to the Pap smear, which is used to detect the early signs of cervical cancer.

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