Counterpoint: Cervical Cancer Screening Guidelines--Approaching the Golden Age

Improving compliance with cervical cancer screening guidelines.

Current cervical cancer screening guidelines for the care of healthy women include HPV cotesting with all Papanicolaou (Pap) smears after the age of 30. To improve compliance with current guidelines, we instituted two processes: first, simplifying the ordering process to a single order for Pap smear plus HPV cotesting using an electronic medical record system (EMR); and second, providing educat...

The Role of Health Beliefsin Predicting Barriersto Cervical Cancer Screening

Background & Aims: Health beliefs play an important role in encouraging people to engage in behaviors related to health promotion. Thus, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the role of health beliefs in predicting barriersto cervical cancerscreening among women in Bandar Abbas, Iran. Methods: Using convenience and random sampling, this cross-sectional study was conducted on 681 married wom...

Age-specific effectiveness of the Finnish cervical cancer screening programme Running title: Age-specific effectiveness of cervical cancer screening

Making sense of the new cervical-cancer screening guidelines.

n engl j med 365;23 nejm.org december 8, 2011 2145 recommended screening with the Papanicolaou (Pap) smear and pelvic examination at the initiation of sexual activity or by 18 years of age and annually thereafter. Although not evidencebased, this guideline was easy to remember, timed to coincide with the onset of legal adulthood, and well received by patients and clinicians. Linking the Pap sme...

Assessing the impact of new cervical cancer screening guidelines.

With more than 12,000 women diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer annually in the United States, the importance of screening certain patient populations for human papillomavirus (HPV)—the main cause of cervical cancer—has become a key topic of discussion in women’s health. Approximately two-thirds of all cervical cancer cases are caused by the two highest-risk HPV genotypes, HPV 16 and HPV 18...