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Treat Fast, Get Results -- Two Studies of Poor, Low-Income Women Show Gains After Tests for Cervical Cancer

Posted on: Thursday, 3 November 2005, 09:00 CST

By Carla K Johnson Associated Press

CHICAGO - Low-income American women and women in developing countries tested for cervical cancer could benefit from faster, more aggressive treatment, two studies suggest.

Some of those women would be treated unnecessarily, but the trade- off might save lives in areas where women often die from a cancer that can be treated if caught early, said University of California, Irvine, researcher Dr. Wendy Brewster, co-author of one of the studies.

Both studies appear in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.

Cervical cancer is preventable and mostly afflicts the world's poorest women. Many women in affluent countries get screened annually with a Pap smear, in which cells are scraped from the cervix and examined under a microscope in a lab.

If the test is abnormal, the patient is called back for a biopsy. If the biopsy shows signs of cancer, the woman and her doctor discuss treatment choices.

In poor countries, however, lab testing and biopsies are rare. In poor U.S. neighborhoods, patients might not get regular Pap tests, or might fail to return for follow-up exams.

The new studies, which explore ways to get more poor women tested and treated, were done in South Africa and in largely Hispanic neighborhoods in Orange County, Calif.

In the California study, 3,521 women were given Pap smears. One group of women stayed at the clinic to await results. If their tests indicated high-grade precancerous lesions, they had a procedure that day to remove a layer of the cervix. The cervix is the lower part of the uterus that opens into the vagina.

In the comparison group, women with abnormal tests were referred for follow-up care. Checking back six months and 12 months later, researchers found that the women in the single-visit group were significantly more likely to have completed their care than women in the comparison group.

In the South Africa study by researchers from Columbia University and the University of Cape Town, 6,555 women got two screening tests: one for human papilloma virus, HPV, a common sexually transmitted virus that causes most cervical cancer, and the other a simple test for precancerous lesions.

The HPV test was more accurate than the cheaper test, but both exams reduced the incidence of precancerous lesions.

Source: Commercial Appeal, The

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