Evidence Based Article: Screening recommendations for cervical cancers
The article I chose addresses the new screening recommendations for cervical cancers,
addresses when to begin screening, when screening may be discontinued, whether to screen
women who have had a hysterectomy, appropriate screening intervals, and new screening
technologies, including liquid-based cytology and HPV DNA testing.
Cervical cancer starts in the cells lining the cervix -- the lower part of the uterus. This is sometimes called the uterine cervix. Cervical cancer can often be found early, and sometimes even prevented entirely, by having regular testing. If detected early, cervical cancer is one of the most successfully treatable cancers. With procedures such as routine Papanicolaou (Pap) test and cervical cytology screenings becoming more common, cervical cancer mortality has decreased by almost 70 percent over the last five decades.
According to the American Cancer Society, women aged 21-29 should have a routine Pap test done every 3 years, every 5 years combined with the HPV screening after age 30 till 65 years of age. Women of any age should not be screened annually because of the risk of false positives. While the number of incidences of undetected cervical cancer have greatly decreased there are still many women who have never been tested who are not accounted for in these statistics, older women, women of low income households, uneducated women and underinsured or uninsured women. Making these tests more available, more affordable and discussing the importance of these routine tests could lower the number of mortalities even more and could even encourage screenings for other cancers to become more prevalent. Below are the links to my article and the link to the American cancer Society cervical cancer information.
American Cancer Society Guideline for the Early Detection of Cervical
Neoplasia and Cancer. (2002, November). Retrieved November 29, 2016,
from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/canjclin.52.6.342/full
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.3322/canjclin.52.6.342/epdf
http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cervicalcancer/
Good article choice Mecala! I agree with the importance of routine cervical screening, due to the fact that a majority of HPV and cervical cancer can be asymptomatic and go unnoticed. In fact, cervical cancer in many women is often found in the late stages with the lack of routine pap smears. This is why education in patients, within the age criteria, is so important. It’s a simple fact, many people do not like going to the doctor, especially one as uncomfortable as the OB-GYN. With the right education on importance and options of availability, these women can be informed and take action in their reproductive health.
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