In 2012, the American Society of Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, the American Cancer Society, and a number of health organizations got together and created the Cervical Cancer Screening Guidelines. The annual OB/GYN exam is so important and women need to be reassured that the Cervical Cancer Screening Guidelines that are in place today are based on hundreds of Pap test results from women across this nation, explains Holland.
What exactly are they looking for?
The obvious answer to this question is that your healthcare provider is looking for any signs of cancer. “When we do a Pap test, we use a spatula to collect cells from the outside of the cervix and a broom to collect cells from the inside of the cervical canal, we then take those cells and we put them in a preservative and send them on to a pathologist. He reviews the cells for their quality and looks for any abnormality or any cell that is suspicious or pre-cancerous in nature,” explains Holland.
For the HPV test, they test for the presence of the virus, many times they can find low-risk strands of HPV, which don’t cause cancer, but there are some that do, such as strands 16 and 18 which are responsible for about 70% of cervical cancers. “That’s the beautiful thing about the Pap test—it saves lives,” she says. “If a woman keeps her routine exam, there’s no reason why any woman in this country should get cervical cancer and research supports that statement.”
The best part is that a healthy body and a healthy immune system can clear the virus within 12 to 24 months if the woman is healthy and takes care of herself. This includes the prevention of cervical cancer with the HPV vaccine, routine condom use, and abstaining from smoking which puts you more at risk for cervical cancer. Females between 9 to 26 years old and males between 9 and 21 years old should get an HPV vaccine.
Pap tests save lives and these tests are able to detect the virus that causes cervical cancer at an early stage. If a woman is in the early stages of cervical cancer she’s asymptomatic, which means that she’s showing no symptoms. If she’s in the middle stages of cervical cancer, she usually has abnormal vaginal bleeding or spotting and a malodorous discharge. If she’s in the later stages she has a lot of bleeding, a lot of malodorous discharge, pelvic pain, bladder pain, back pain, and she will have a lot of fatigue and anemia from the heavy bleeding, in addition to weight loss, loss of appetite, and constipation. “You can be in the middle to later stages and not know you have it and that’s just unacceptable in America when we have access to care for annual exams every year,” says Holland.
For HPV there are no signs. There are cases where women have genital, cervical or vaginal warts and show low-risk strands, but these don’t cause cervical cancer. “Even if this is a big deal to women, aesthetically it’s not a very big deal to us, a big deal to us is high-risk strands because they cause cervical cancer,” she says.
The best thing that a woman can do to prevent cervical cancer is to get the HPV vaccine and get an annual Pap test as an adult. “There’s no reason in this world why any woman should contract the virus to the point where they have cervical cancer because cervical cancer is preventable,” says Holland. If you haven’t done so already, call your doctor and ask him or her when you had your last Pap smear. January is not only a great time to focus on your New Year’s resolutions, but also take better control of your health.
