TAMPA, FL -- First mammograms -- now pap smears. For the second time this week, health experts are releasing new cancer screening guidelines aimed at women - and it has many in our area confused and concerned.
Alicia Green is a 19-year-old mother. She's at her OB-GYN's office for a quick check up. Since she's sexually active, she's been getting pap smears for years, “because cancer runs in my family. I have two kids to raise and don’t want to miss out on anything because I have cancer that is killing me."
The sexually transmitted disease HPV can cause cancer. A pap smear can spot pre-cancerous changes in a woman's cervix in time to prevent cervical cancer.
But a new recommendation from the American college of Obstetricians and Gynecologists suggests routine pap smears should begin at age 21, not 18, and women between 20 and 30 get tested every other year. Women 30 and up every three years -- if they've had three normal pap tests in a row.
Alicia’s doctor, Jill Hechtman, says so many teens are sexual active before way before age 21, “that puts them at greater risk of getting HPV which puts them at higher risk of getting cervical cancer.”
The new guidelines focus on the fact young women often fight off the HPV virus on their own without lasting harm or invasive tests, but Dr. Hechtman warns an annual exam is still needed for all women because of other health concerns. “Teenagers need to be looked out for pregnancy prevention, STD checks, birth control, and older women need to be screened for ovarian cancer. Which you can’t get off of a pap test. "
Dr. Hechtman says one in four women has HPV and pap smears have prevented more cancers than even mammograms.
She fears insurance companies will now take these new guidelines and stop paying for pap smears unless women are at higher risk.
There is a new HPV vaccine that should cut cervical cancer in the future. The ACOG’S guidelines say, for now, vaccinated women should follow the same pap guidelines as the unvaccinated.
