Nov 20, 2009 11:15 pm US/Eastern
New Guidelines For Testing For Cervical Cancer
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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Doctors have issued new guidelines regarding the protocol for testing for cervical cancer.
CBS
Days after new guidelines for mammograms were released, the guidelines for cervical cancer testing are also changing.
Kelly McPherson spoke to a local doctor about what this means.
For years, women have followed the rule that they need an exam and pap smear every year. Now doctors and patients must decide how to adjust care.
Twenty-eight-year-old Daphne Blount has been getting pap smears every year.
"Unfortunately, I had quite a few abnormal pap smears and eventually I had to have a procedure done to rule out the negative abnormal cells to make sure they weren't dangerous," she said. If she had waited too long, she says, "the abnormal cells that were there could have possibly turned to cancer."
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists are now recommending that women 21 to 30 get a pap smear every two years. Women thirty and older should only get one every three years and precancer screening should start at 21, not 18.
"Even if you don't know she has it, she's going to get rid of it on her own. That's what they're telling us," said Dr. Dwight Im, Mercy Hospital. "It does make me nervous. But when it comes to cervical cancer, what they're telling us is in the very young--and I've had patients who were teenagers who came down with cervical cancer--those young ones are not picked up by a pap smear. They usually have problems with bleeding or some other issues."
Some Baltimore doctors worry that the new guidelines of getting a pap smear every two years instead of every year will translate into patients not seeing their gynecologist every year, and that's not what the guidelines say.
"We need to educate the public and say, you know, by the way, you still have to have an examination once a year," Im said.
Of course, it's up to doctors to cater the new guidelines to their own patients' health and to those who may hesitate to change what has worked for them.
"Making women wait every two years--it's really, really, really a big risk factor, I think," Blount said.
This guideline change comes days after women were told to wait until 50, not 40, to get mammograms. Some are questioning if this is to lower health care costs of pre-cancer screenings.
"Historically when we have seen recommendations published in the United States, the insurers have indeed moved to be supportive of those guidelines," said Nancy Davenport-Ennis, Patient Advocate Foundation.
The Baltimore doctor we spoke to is a member of the organization that put out the new guidelines. He says he hopes the motives are not financial and says the timing with the mammogram guidelines seems to be coincidental.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has spoken out against the new mammogram guidelines but has not yet commented on pap smears.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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