Doctors are predicting a surge in cervical cancer rates because younger women are abandoning smear tests, a report shows today.

Last year 1,300 fewer women aged 25 to 29 in England had smear tests every week than 10 years earlier. More than 30% now ignore their invitation to take part in the national screening programme.

The introduction of screening in 1988 brought deaths from the disease down from 6,000 to 1,000 a year.

Doctors now believe smear tests could have gone out of fashion because fewer people are dying and so much less is heard about the disease.

Attendance of 30- to 34-year-olds has dropped from 84.3% to 78% and across the UK there has been the third consecutive annual fall in smear test attendance. The figures suggest that around 2,000 women aged 25 to 29 who have developed dangerous pre-cancerous cells miss the chance of being diagnosed at the earliest point.

Julietta Patnick, director of NHS cancer screening programmes, said: "We are currently exploring the reasons why women don't attend for cervical screening and our preliminary results indicate that they think it may hurt or that the experience will be embarrassing. Of course we are keen to understand why women today may be more embarrassed than perhaps 10 or 20 years ago.

"Another key issue could in fact be the effectiveness of the screening programme - a reduction in rates of cervical cancer means it is now a far less common disease so people don't tend to worry about it so much."

A recent study of trends in cervical cancer in 13 European countries found it was being held steady or reducing in countries that had screening, but was increasing in those without screening, such as Spain and Slovakia.