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Screening in Latvia

Latvia splits its screening in two. Breast and cervical checks arrive as a personal invitation letter from the National Health Service; the bowel and prostate checks are state-funded but you ask your family doctor for them.

This page describes screening programmes; it is not a diagnosis, not a personal risk assessment and not a substitute for your own health service. Age bands are set nationally and change — the invitation you receive, and the body named on your country page, outrank anything written here. Screening is for people without symptoms: a new lump, blood you can see, a mole that has changed, unexplained weight loss or a sudden change in vision or hearing needs a clinician now, whatever a recent screening result said.

The programmes

Two different systems in one country

It is worth understanding this split before you conclude you have been forgotten. Latvia’s cervical and breast checks are a genuine call-and-recall programme: the National Health Service works out who is due and posts an invitation, roughly three months after the relevant birthday, either to your declared address or to your official e-address on the state portal. The bowel test and the prostate check are equally state-funded and equally free, but nobody writes to you about them — you ask your family doctor, who gives you the kit or the referral.

What changed in 2025

Cervical screening was rebuilt on 1 July 2025. Women aged 25 to 29 continue with a cytology sample every three years. From 30 to 70 the test is now an HPV test and the interval is five years rather than three — a longer gap that reflects how much better the virus test is at ruling out risk, not a reduction in the service. If you were used to a three-yearly letter in your thirties, this is why the next one takes longer.

The bowel test nobody writes to you about

Everyone aged 50 to 74 can have a state-funded faecal occult blood test through their family doctor, and it is the programme with the largest gap between entitlement and uptake precisely because there is no letter to prompt it. The kit is used at home, from a single bowel movement, with no dietary preparation. Ask for it at any appointment you already have; you do not need a separate reason to attend.

Prostate and what a PSA result means here

Latvia funds a PSA blood test for men aged 50 to 75, and earlier for men with a family history of prostate cancer. That is a more permissive position than Sweden’s, where organised PSA screening is explicitly not recommended, so it is worth reading the prostate page on this site before you decide. A raised PSA is not a diagnosis; it is a reason for a conversation, usually followed by an MRI-first pathway rather than an immediate biopsy.

Age by age

The same table again, turned around: every age at which something falls due, so you can find your own and read across. This is rendered on the server, so it works whether or not the calculator below does.

Women: the age ladder

Men: the age ladder

Where an interval is set regionally, only the age the band opens is listed — the country’s own body publishes the repeat interval. Ages are the age you reach in the calendar year, because target groups across the region are built from birth years rather than birth dates.

Work out your own years

Sources: SPKC — Vēža skrīnings (cancer screening) · Nacionālais veselības dienests — cervical and breast checks · SPKC — bowel cancer preventive test · SPKC — prostate cancer preventive check · Nacionālais veselības dienests — prostate preventive check · checked 2026-09-07

Preguntas frecuentes

The tests you will be invited to

The other countries

Age bands differ across the region by up to a decade for the same programme, so a comparison is genuinely useful — particularly if you have moved, or if family live elsewhere.

Estonia · Finland · Lithuania · Sweden · Norway · Denmark

The whole regional tableHow invitations work