Word: smears
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...seems incredible to me that Public Health Researcher Foltz and Epidemiologist Kelsey, described in your story "Flap About Pap" [Nov. 13], would put down the Pap smear on the basis of "considerable expense." This relatively simple test, which can detect cancer, costs only about $6. Further, if the test does not detect cancerous conditions 25% to 30% of the time, isn't this all the more reason to have checkups annually and not every three to five years...
...test is familiar to almost every woman who has visited a gynecologist. To take a Pap smear, the doctor inserts a metal device that enables him or her to see into the vaginal tract. Then he inserts a swab or spatula, scrapes some cells from the cervix and smears them on a glass slide, which is then sent to a laboratory for microscopic examination. A few days later, the doctor receives a report indicating whether the cells are normal, atypical or malignant. The patient gets a bill for about...
American women have been urged since the early 1950s to have an annual Pap (named for its inventor, Dr. George Papanicolaou) smear as a screening test for cervical cancer. That recommendation has now been challenged. Public Health Researcher Anne-Marie Foltz of New York University and Epidemiologist Jennifer Kelsey of Yale University charge that the test became entrenched as a yearly health measure before its merits could be established. At best, they say, institution of the annual Pap test has been "a dubious policy success...
Then too, say the critics, the test is not highly accurate. Primarily because the physician may take an inadequate smear, some 20% to 30% of tested women who may have an atypical or cancerous condition erroneously receive a normal report. One study shows that because the condition of the cells is sometimes misinterpreted by the laboratory, another 7% of tested women who are in good health are told they have suspicious smears, after which a biopsy is often recommended. To Foltz and Kelsey, such statistics at the very least indicate that the Pap test is being overused at considerable expense...
Beyond U.S. borders, others have come to similar conclusions. A medical task force in Canada studied the effects of the annual Pap smear and two years ago reported that the results did not warrant the costs. Their recommendation: at age 18 any woman who has had sex should have her first Pap test. If it is negative, she should wait a year and have a second test. If that too is negative, then she should be screened only once every three years until age 35, then once every five years to age 60. If the test is still negative, there...