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Some Postmenopausal Women May Not Need Annual Pap Smear.
2001 JAN 11 -- (NewsRx.com) -- Some postmenopausal women may not need to have Pap smears within two years of a normal test result, a University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), study has found.
This is because it is unlikely these women will have significant abnormalities within that time frame, the researchers said.
Moreover, the test - used to screen for abnormal cells that could lead to cervical cancer if untreated - is far more prone to give a false-positive reading rather than detect early cervical disease in this group of women. A false-positive result is when the test suggests clinically important changes when there are none.
"The bottom line is in postmenopausal women who have normal Pap smear results, the benefits of annual screening appear to be small and the risk of false-positive testing is many orders of magnitude greater," said study author George Sawaya, MD, UCSF assistant professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences.
The study was published in the December 19, 2000, issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
The incidence of cervical cancer has declined by more than 70% in the U.S. over the last 50 years. The widespread availability of Pap smears is credited for that drop. It is standard practice to screen women every one to three years in the U.S. But, there is no consensus on when - or if - screening should stop. Recommendations from different professional groups range from discontinuing screening at 65 years of age in previously screened women with a history of normal smears to less frequent screening at undefined intervals.
"No one knows how often to screen postmenopausal women for cervical cancer," Sawaya said. "But we do know that if women have been screened throughout their lives and have tested negative for cervical abnormalities, the chance that they will develop new cervical disease is quite small. But no one has tried to quantify this likelihood in postmenopausal women in the United States. This is the first study to do that."
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Source: HighBeam Research, Some Postmenopausal Women May Not Need Annual Pap Smear.