Skipped Pap test behind many cervical cancers

Failure to get a Pap test - as well as failure of the test itself - are common for women who have been diagnosed with Cervical cancer, researchers report.

Invasive Cervical cancer is "highly preventable, yet it continues to occur, even among women who have access to cancer screening and treatment strategies," they point out in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

To find out why, Dr. M. Michele Manos from Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, and colleagues identified 833 women diagnosed with cervical cancer and reviewed their medical records for the 3 years prior to diagnosis.

Being in the managed care health plan, all the women had access to regular screening. Nonetheless, 56 percent of cervical cancers occurred in women who had not had a Pap test up to 36 months prior to diagnosis, the investigators found.

Of the remaining cases, 32 percent were attributed to failure of the Pap test to detect the cancer, and 13 percent to failure to follow up an abnormal test result.

Among the women who had not been screened for cervical cancer, 81 percent had had at least one healthcare visit during the three years prior to their cancer diagnosis.

"Many of these women had been seen multiple times," Manos noted in comments to Reuters Health. "These were missed opportunities to intervene and remind them that they were overdue for Pap screening."

She added that strategies to improve the accuracy of Pap screening are also needed.

SOURCE: Journal of the National Cancer Institute, May 4, 2005.