Pap test guidelines changed

By David Liu

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) announced Friday that it has changed its Pap smear guidelines to recommend that young women should begin getting Pap smear testing at an older age and at less frequent intervals than previously recommended.

The new Pap smear guidelines recommends that women aged 21 to 30 should be screened once every two years instead of every year.

The 2003 guidelines recommended that women should begin cervical screening three years after first having sexual intercourse or by 21 whichever came first.

The ACOG acknowledged that the aggressive cervical cancer screening recommended in the previous Pap test guidelines may lead to unnecessary followup tests and physical harm to the cervix, money loss and anxiety.

One adverse impact on the women who receive Pap test is false positives which trigger additional tests that may require removing part of the cervix. The cervix is the narrow, lowest part of the uterus. The invasive tests might have an impact on the patients' ability to bear children, the ACOG was cited as saying.

Pap test or Pap smear test is intended to detect cervical cancer, which is found in 11,000 women in the United States and kills about 4,000 each year. The disease is mainly if not all caused by an infection from a virus called HPV or human papillomavirus, which spreads through sexual contact.

HPV infection is common among sexual active men and women. However, most carriers cna clear the virus without any medical intervention within a year or two of infection. Those chronic carriers of this virus are at higher risk of cervical cancer.

What Pap test does is that doctors collect some cells from a woman's cervix and examine them to see if there are any abnormal cells.

When Pap smear abnormalities are detected, doctors will pursue further tests and treatment even if the abnormal cells are not cancerous yet.

Each year about 55 million Pap tests are performed each year in the United States. Of those who receive the test, about 6 percent have abnormal cells and require medical follow-up, according to cancer.gov.

Abnormal Pap smear results are not necessarily indicative of any cancer, but some medical conditions include dysplasia, suqamous intraepithelial lesion, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia,and atypical squamous cells.

Although abnormal cells are found in 6 percent of the women who receive the test, cancerous cells are rare, cancer.gov says.

The risk of developing cervical cancer is much higher in those women who have a weakened immune system because of organ transplant, chemotherapy, or steroid use and women who are HIV positive or her mother was exposed to diethylstilbestrol while pregnant.

The new Pap test guidelines may or may not have any impact on the current practice. It's doctors who decide whether or not a woman should undergo a Pap smear testing.