Changes Coming to Pap Screening Guidelines

The Canadian Task Force on Preventative Care has changed their reccomendations for Pap screening.  Click here to read the full article that was published online by the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Currently the guidelines suggest that Pap screening should begin in sexually active woman at age 21, however, the panel is now recommending that Pap screening should begin at age 25.  This new reccomendation seems a bit counter-intuitive initially when you are looking at it from a standpoint of HPV screening, however, the article details that this new reccomendation is to do with potential harm done by the screening.

Basically, the potential harm identified is anxiety, false positives then resulting in unecessary further investigations and/or treatments.  Anxiety aside, further investigations and treatments can involve biopsies or partial cervix removal which in turn can cause scarring leading to miscarriage and/or premature labour.

The guidelines recommend continuing on a screening interval of every three years and to be discontinued at age 70 (or older) when there has been a history of three successive negative Pap smears done. 

Each individual patient should be taken into consideration for issues such as immune deficiency which would require screening more frequently, or complete hysterectomy (non-cancerous) which would no longer require Pap smear screening.