Atlanta Women’s Specialists adopts New Pap Smear and Cancer Screening Guidelines
Atlanta Women’s Specialists has adopted the new guidelines for cervical cancer screening established by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG). These guidelines were released and published in the December 2009 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
According to the new guidelines, women should have their first cervical cancer screening at age 21 and can be rescreened less frequently than previously recommended. Most women younger than 30 should undergo cervical screening once every two years instead of annually, and those age 30 and older can be rescreened once every three years. We’ve posted more detailed information on these new guidelines here.
Annual Visits and Pap Smears
Many women equate the annual “well woman” visit with getting a PAP smear. These new guidelines do not change the recommendation for an annual visit. A breast and pelvic exam should be obtained annually, but the laboratory test for cervical cancer screening (the PAP) does not need to be obtained annually in most cases. In addition, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends yearly screening of all sexually active women 25 and under for Gonorrhea and Chlamydia.
Cervical cancer rates have fallen by more than 50% in the past 30 years in the US due to the widespread use of the Pap test. The incidence of cervical cancer fell from 14.8 per 100,000 women in 1975 to 6.5 per 100,000 women in 2006. The American Cancer Society estimates that there will be 11,270 new cases of cervical cancer and 4,070 deaths from it in the US in 2009. The majority of deaths from cervical cancer in the US are among women who are screened infrequently or not at all. Cervical cancer is a slow growing cancer caused by certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), an extremely common sexually transmitted disease among women and men. HPV also causes genital and anal warts, as well as oral and anal cancer.
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