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Article History

Received: 22 May 2016

Accepted: 27 March 2018

First Online: 5 April 2018

Ethics approval and consent to participate

: Our study was conducted in accordance with Dutch legislation. According to Dutch law, medical ethics approval is not needed for this type of study with no extra burden for participants and anonymized data (The Code of Conduct for the Use of Data in Health Research [in Dutch: Code Goed Gedrag], ExternalRef removed). The Dutch legislation regarding informed consent has changed during the follow-up time of the study (1975–2012). Until 1989, there was no law on registration of personal data and the women who then participated in the screening programme were not asked to give informed consent. Between 1989 and 2004, women had to give explicit permission before their data could be used for research. There has been an opt-out procedure since 2004, in which women are informed in writing about the use of personal data for scientific research and women automatically consent by participating in screening. Women can object (opt out) by filling out an objection form. In this study, no data was used of women who did not give permission (1989–2004) or who objected to the use of their data (since 2004).

: Not applicable.

: The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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