Lifescript Health: Attn Husbands, Fathers, Boyfriends Do the Women in Your Lives Need Yearly Pap Tests? (1087 hits)
Here is doctors’ advice on how often to have this life-saving test… Many women have long viewed annual Pap smears as the Holy Grail of preventive medicine – The test, in which doctors scrape cells from the cervix and examine them under a microscope to look for abnormalities, is considered the best way to find changes that could lead to cervical cancer. But the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and a consortium led by the American Cancer Society published new guidelines (in 2012) saying that many women can wait as long as 5 years between screenings.
Women ages 30-65 may wait three years between pap exams if the results are negative, according to the guidelines. They also recommend that these women undergo “co-testing,” in which they have both the Pap smear and a test for human papillomavirus (HPV), the s*xually transmitted virus responsible for genital warts.
The change was based on studies showing that more frequent Pap tests didn’t lower the risk of cervical cancer. The tests themselves are safe, but a young woman’s future fertility might be harmed from the additional procedures required from positive Pap results, which are sometimes inaccurate. Researchers also have discovered that cervical cancer is often caused by HPV. HPV-triggered cellular changes are so slow-growing, though, that frequent testing isn’t necessary, they say.
“Most pre-cancerous lesions take 10 years to become cancer, so there’s breathing room,” says George Sawaya, M.D., professor in the UC-San Francisco Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. “There are many opportunities to find and treat it before it becomes [dangerous].”
Should you follow the recommendation? The new guidelines follow revised mammogram guidelines that increased the interval between breast cancer screenings from one to two years for some women. The reaction among some women to revised Pap and mammogram guidelines has been unexpectedly swift and loud: We won’t give up annual screenings. Why toss the dice on our health? For decades, women have had it drummed into their heads that yearly Pap tests are a must. Yet many doctors say the research doesn’t support the benefits of such frequent screening.
“[The benefits of] annual Pap smears were never scientifically proven,” Leitao says. “They [were done annually] because women saw doctors every year.”
An analysis of 1.2 million screening results from a national early-cancer detection program found no adverse consequences from extending the interval from one to three years, according to a 2003 study led by UCSF’s Sawaya. The reward of annual testing compared to testing every three years is diagnosing just three more cases of cervical cancer among 100,000, the study found.
Pap tests are the “poster child” for cancer prevention and early detection, but “that doesn’t mean we should overuse them,” Sawaya says.
One problem is that Pap tests sometimes provide incorrect positive results, possibly because of inflammation or ******l infection, according to the National Cancer Institute. “Millions of false positives lead to additional tests,” Leitao says. “That’s a lot of unnecessary procedures.” Teenage girls and women under 21 are especially prone to cervical abnormalities that seem precancerous, according to studies by the American Cancer Society, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other groups. About 90% of these cases resolve on their own, because young people’s immune systems are strong enough to fight off HPV before it causes cancer.
What’s more, only one to two cases of cancer occur per 1 million in girls ages 15-19. That’s why many medical experts believe that adolescents should wait until they’re 21 for their first Pap screening.
And while HPV infections are responsible for 70% of all cervical cancers, they tend to grow so slowly that two- or three-year intervals between exams pose no risk to most women’s health. (Some uncommon strains are more aggressive, requiring more immediate attention.)
...“Most pre-cancerous lesions take 10 years to become cancer, so there’s breathing room,” says George Sawaya, M.D., professor in the UC-San Francisco Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences. “There are many opportunities to find and treat it before it becomes [dangerous].” ...
