Simpler Test for Cervical Cancer Might Replace Pap Smear

(INDIANAPOLIS) – Your Pap smear could become less common, with a simpler test replacing it.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force is an independent panel which recommends what screenings you need and how often. It’s revised its recommendation for cervical cancer — for women over 30, the panel says a swab test for the virus which causes the disease may be fine by itself. Doctors could save Pap smears for cases where the HPV swab comes back positive.

Saint Vincent ob/gyn Amy Moon-Holland says while the swab test costs more, doing one test instead of two could be simpler and cheaper for patients. And she says the swab test is simple enough that it wouldn’t require a doctor to collect the sample. That would make it possible to make the screenings more widely available.

But Moon-Holland says it’s up to individual doctors to decide what’s appropriate for their patients. IU Health cytotechnologist Melissa Randolph says doctors there are likely to stick with both tests — she says about one in eight cervical cancers are types the swab test alone would miss.

Randolph says what’s important is to get screened regularly. Moon-Holland says one fear with revised screening recommendations is that patients will get overconfident and stop coming in. Randolph says if that happens, doctors lose the opportunity not only to check for cervical cancer but for other health conditions.

(Photo: Brian A. Jackson/Thinkstock)