Panel: Pap remains best test for detecting cervical cancer

Associated Press

There’s more news on cancer-screening tests — this time for women.

Scientists advising the government say a Pap test is a good way to screen young and middle-aged women for cervical cancer, and it’s needed only once every three years. But they say there is not enough evidence yet to back testing for HPV, the virus that causes the disease.

That’s at odds with the American Cancer Society and other groups, which long have said that using both tests can be an option for women over 30.

Those groups and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force separately plan to release proposed new guidelines for cervical cancer screening Wednesday and invite public comment. The task force is the same group that recommended against routine PSA tests to screen for prostate cancer, saying they were doing more harm than good for men at average risk.

Cervical-cancer screening is a success story. In the United States, cases and death rates have been cut by more than half since the 1970s because of Pap smears — lab exams of cells scraped from the cervix. The test can find early signs of this slow-growing cancer and treat them before a tumor has a chance to develop.