Guidelines Push Back Age for Cervical Cancer Tests

[babylonsister]

Guidelines Push Back Age for Cervical Cancer Tests

By DENISE GRADY
Published: November 20, 2009


New guidelines for cervical cancer screening say women should delay their first Pap test until age 21, and be screened less often than recommended in the past.

The advice, from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is meant to decrease unnecessary testing and potentially harmful treatment, particularly in teenagers and young women. The group’s previous guidelines had recommended yearly testing for young women, starting within three years of their first sexual intercourse, but no later than age 21.

Arriving on the heels of hotly disputed guidelines calling for less use of mammography, the new recommendations might seem like part of a larger plan to slash cancer screening for women. But the timing was coincidental, said Dr. Cheryl B. Iglesia, the chairwoman of a panel in the obstetricians’ group that developed the Pap smear guidelines. The group updates its advice regularly based on new medical information, and Dr. Iglesia said the latest recommendations had been in the works for several years, “long before the Obama health plan came into existence.”

She called the timing crazy, uncanny and “an unfortunate perfect storm,” adding, “There’s no political agenda with regard to these recommendations.”

Dr. Iglesia said the argument for changing Pap screening was more compelling than that for cutting back on mammography — which the obstetricians’ group has staunchly opposed — because there is more potential for harm from the overuse of Pap tests. The reason is that young women are especially prone to develop abnormalities in the cervix that appear to be precancerous, but that will go away if left alone. But when Pap tests find the growths, doctors often remove them, with procedures that can injure the cervix and lead to problems later when a woman becomes pregnant, including premature birth and an increased risk of needing a Caesarean.

Still, the new recommendations for Pap tests are likely to feed a political debate in Washington over health care overhaul proposals. The mammogram advice led some Republicans to predict that such recommendations would lead to rationing.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/health/20pap.html?_r=1&hp

[mopinko]

1. so, issue guidelines on the treatment of abnormalities in young women, then.

whassamatta- your members can't resist cutting into every little thing they find? how bout fix that, ferchrissakes.

[TwilightGardener]

2. I can attest to atypical findings on Paps often going away on their own--

that happened to me. Had "atypical" cells, doctor wanted me to undergo colposcopy, but I couldn't afford it at the time. Repeated Paps over the years turned up normal.