Posted on 03/15/2012 3:24:14 AM PDT by tobyhill
The annual Pap smear, a cornerstone of women’s health for at least 60 years, is now officially a thing of the past, as new national guidelines recommend cervical cancer screening no more often than every three years.
In recent years, some doctors and medical groups, including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in 2009, began urging less frequent screening for cervical cancer. Even so, annual Pap smear testing is still common because many women are reluctant to give up frequent screening for cervical cancer.
The new guidelines, issued on Wednesday by the United States Preventive Services Task Force, replace recommendations last issued in 2003 and use more decisive language to advise women to undergo screening less often. Other groups, including the American Cancer Society, released similar recommendations on Wednesday. The new guidelines were published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
(Excerpt) Read more at well.blogs.nytimes.com ...
No screening after age 65?
That is when 20% of diagnosed cervical cancers occur
Sounds like rationing to me
Have a look at the members of this cost-cutting panel: http://www.uspreventiveservicestaskforce.org/members.htm.
Heavy on policy, data and teaching, light on clinical practice IMHO. Right now it is a recommendation. Bet Obamacare will tie it to reimbursement. Barky needs to go, along with this odious legislation.
My grandmother died of it at age 86. She had never had a pap smear. She was very modest and ladylike in an old fashioned way. I wonder if doctors never suggested it or she refused.
Guess that is the plan...find cancer late when treatment is cost-prohibitive. There is a pattern here and it is ugly.
Thread bump.
So which political party has the real ‘war on women’?
I am aware of a case where someone had a normal PAP, and two years later a PAP showed she had a CIN3 (highest stage of dysplasia before it becomes malignant). Waiting another year for a PAP would almost certainly have resulted in invasive cancer.
This comes right after the CBO now states that Obamacare will cost double than previously stated. It's rationed care and not just with Medicare, it will now pass on to every private plan.
A person can be dead in that time......with no need for insurance anymore which seem to be the goal in my humble opinion!
So the Republicans supposedly have a ‘war on women’ because they don’t want to pay for women to have sex and yet the Dems LITERALLY are playing with our lives.
We live in an upside down world.
Sounds like the first leg of a death panel to me. Who determines those that are at ‘higher risk?’ Must we submit to the authorities to request a screening?
Want your mind blown? Go read the comments the libs are making. Apparently this is an AMAZINGLY good idea!
This was the last paragraph and says it all. .....
.Women who have a history of normal/healthy pap readings....
..can cease pap smears after 65.
My doctor said those very words at my last check-up.
“There is less than a 30% chance of a false positive ...”
Actually, a false positive rate anywhere near 30% is very high. When combined with the low prevalence of cervical cancer, routine annual screening with the current test results in an extremely low probability of having cancer, given that you test positive. What we need is a more accurate test.
Well, I guess I’m in the minority, but I agree with this. We have way too many tests that increase the cost of insurance and care for everyone. Almost every test has risks as well as benefits, and false positives lead to even greater cost and risk. No, I’m not in favor of government having any role in health insurance or health care; let the market work. However, there is no infinite supply of anything, including health care. There will always be issues of how best to spend the money we have on what we want and need. Right now, Americans are over-tested and over-treated. (some good books on the subject - Worried Sick by Nortin Hadler and Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health by Gilbert Welch)
As for the 86-year-old who died from cancer, everyone dies of something. We are not going to cure mortality.
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