Cervical Cancer Screenings Once Every Two Years
Posted on: Friday, 20 November 2009, 10:45 CST
US women only need a pap smear once ever two years, says the new guidelines released Friday that are trying to lessen the chances of frequent and redundant treatment.
The news released from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) now suggest that women under 30 should receive a cervical cancer screening once every two years. It also says that women that are 30 and older only need a pap once every three years.
The suggestions are taken from scientific verification that proposes that over-testing causes over-treatment, which might affect a young woman's probability of bearing children.
"Overtreatment of minor abnormal pap tests in young women and adolescents can lead to consequences such as preterm labor in some cases. It increases the risk," said Dr. Thomas Herzog of Columbia University in New York, to Reuters News.
"Preterm delivery has become a huge problem in the United States that has potential serious consequences for the unborn fetus," noted Dr. Jennifer Milosavijevic, an authority on obstetrics and gynecology who backs the new guideline.
"These new guidelines will allow us to avoid doing unnecessary procedures on the sexually active adolescent female," she wrote in an e-mail to Reuters News.
The suggestions will probably not be met with the kind of insurgence that followed the new breast cancer screening suggestions this week, which were mainly pulled from computer projections, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.
"There is a lot more agreement about the science of cervical cancer screening," Lichtenfeld said.
Prior suggestions recommended yearly cervical cancer screening to commence three years after a woman becomes sexually active, or at 21. Herzog noted that the new counsel is pulled from research that screening before 21 can be harmful.
"We were over diagnosing and over treating adolescents and very young women," Herzog said to Reuters News.
Cervical cancer is a sluggish cancer caused by contact to specific strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), a sexually transmitted disease spread between women and men.
"Women do not get cervical cancer first. They acquire HPV, the sexually transmitted virus that causes precancerous abnormalities of the cervix and cervical cancer. It takes years to progress from an HPV-infection to full-blown cervical cancer," Milosavijevic said.
For that motive, the alteration of the test interval will cause addition cervical cancers to be missed. The majority of cervical cancer deaths occur when people who are screened rarely, or never.
"The take-home message for women is that you should still get your Pap smear screening," Milosavijevic said.
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Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports
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User Comments (1)
| 1. |
Posted by Commander on 11/20/2009, 15:16 These aren't guidelines, these are politically, NOT medically based justifications for rationing critical, life saving women's health care, the hallmark of a government run health care monopoly. Women who would otherwise not become ill or die from a lack of testing and care will now. |
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