Cancer And The Pap Smear

By David Bjerklie

Deaths from cervical cancer have decreased dramatically in the past 60 years, thanks to early detection by the Pap smear, a screening test that women usually get every year. But a new study in the New England Journal of Medicine finds that for women who are at low risk, the number of additional cancers caught by annual screening is vanishingly small, comparable to the number of men who get breast cancer. This gives statistical support to the advice of the American Cancer Society, which recommended last year that women who have three or more negative tests can be safely screened once every three years. Women in high-risk categories--ask your doctor--should continue to be screened annually. --D.B.