from the Biannual?-Nope.-Semiannual?-Nope.-Triannual?-Nope.-What-DO-they-call-that? dept.
The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has released new recommendations on screening for cervical cancer. These latest recommendations continue the trend of decreasing participant burden by lengthening screening intervals, making the "annual Pap" a historical artifact. Since its introduction 75 years ago, exfoliative cytology commonly known as the Pap test has been the "gold-standard" screening test for cervical cancer.
In the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the USPSTF, an independent panel of experts in primary care and prevention, updates its 2012 recommendations for cervical cancer screening with one important addition. This is the first time the USPSTF has recommended a method of cervical cancer screening that does not include the Pap test.
[...] The new USPSTF guidelines recommend that women ages 21 to 29 years be screened for cervical cancer every three years with the Pap test alone. This recommendation remains unchanged from 2012. For women ages 30 to 65 years, the USPSTF recommends screening for cervical cancer with primary high-risk human papillomavirus (hrHPV) test alone every five years. As an option, they also recommend the previous guideline of hrHPV test and Pap test together (co-testing) every three years.
What was novel in the 2012 USPSTF recommendations was that women ages 30 to 65 years were given the option for the first time to be screened with hrHPV test and Pap test together every five years to lengthen their screening interval. The 2018 recommendations go one step further by including, for the first time, the option of hrHPV testing alone, without a Pap test, every five years.
The table in the new USPSTF recommendations also acknowledges an important trade-off. Co-testing is slightly better than primary hrHPV testing at detecting precancerous lesions but is associated with increased tests and diagnostic procedures that may not benefit the patient and have real costs to the health care system. Pap tests detect changes in cervical cells that could indicate the presence of pre-cancer or cancer, while HPV tests detect the genetic material or DNA of the high-risk types in cervical samples.
Journal Reference:
Lee A. Learman, Francisco A. R. Garcia. Screening for Cervical Cancer: New Tools and New Opportunities. JAMA, 2018 DOI: 10.1001/jama.2018.11004
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @07:56AM
Cervical cancer is almost a sure sign of a slut.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @09:32AM (2 children)
Surely this is the biggest, most relevant question in 2018? I didn't see it addressed in the summary and can therefore only conclude that the USPTF are trans exclusionary bigots.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday August 24 2018, @12:40PM (1 child)
Boring. You didn't even mention 10145 genders.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @12:59PM
Yes, they'll obviously need screening too.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @11:08AM (9 children)
There will be new guidelines saying that testing blood pressure and heart rate need only be done once every ten years if under age 40 and never once oyu reach age 50.
This will save oodles of money AND help thin the herd.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @11:59AM (8 children)
Don't be an idiot.
These decisions are made weighing the likelihood ratios of detention vs. false positives and the benefits/lack of benefits for early detection.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @01:27PM (2 children)
Yeah, he should let feminists be idiots. When the WHO released guidelines suggesting that mammograms should only be done once every two years, feminists went bonkers. In my neck of the woods, the belief developed that all men were denying women healthcare and trying to control their bodies.
I expect about the same here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:17PM (1 child)
To be fair, when you've been told for years that mammograms are very important to get regularly because early detection has an incredible impact on disease pathology, then it is reasonable to expect pushback. Hell, people get angry when trivial things change like whether Pluto is a planet, eggs or margarine being good/bad for you, and paper bags being bad/good for the environment.
This specific example also has extra baggage because politicians politicised the issue of HPV vaccines by making it some sort moral judgment about where slutty girls get what they deserve and virtuous girls are protected by silver rings.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:35PM
Oh. I had heard from the politicians and NPR and such that if we mutilate boys genitals at birth, HPV could no longer be transmitted to women, and cervical cancer would be cured for all time.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:10PM (4 children)
If that was the case this would have been done long ago. Its just the end of a fad. Theranos was probably the peak of the "medical screening" scam/bubble.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:29PM (3 children)
From TFS:
Screening for Cervical Cancer: New Tools and New Opportunities.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @04:02PM (2 children)
I dont see how this is a response to my post.
Think about it this way: What was the procedure to get annual pap screening adopted in he first place? Was the decision "made weighing the likelihood ratios of detention vs. false positives and the benefits/lack of benefits for early detection "?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @04:17PM (1 child)
"New tools" from the title of the scientific paper implies that the additional test couldn't have been included in the guidelines because it didn't exist, for one.
The second part is that the recommendations have been and are continually being revised in light of new and historical data. All therapies and diagnostics have post-approval follow-up where scientists, public health professionals, and others examine the data for anything that wasn't apparent from a smaller patient pool.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @06:09PM
So they made overconfident pronouncements before and are now onto the next thing...
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday August 24 2018, @03:13PM (8 children)
Glad my wife got hers done: if she'd waited another year or two she might be dead or dying now.
But who cares if poor/not rich people die as long as it saves money and rich people can get all the PAPs they want.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @03:29PM
We need to show those incels that it's not right for them to deprive women of healthcare. But we mustn't go after doctors. As we know, the medical field is diverse. These doctors are being forced at gunpoint by Russian incels in IT to recommend more infrequent screenings, because they hate women because they can't get laid. Therefore, we must vote for Hillary Clinton in 2020.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @03:59PM
The authors of the paper and the CDC seem to care:
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday August 24 2018, @04:12PM
Wouldn't the 1% want people to get more paps, what with how expensive hospital care is these days? And some of said 1% being doctors?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @01:02AM (4 children)
This pretty much says that at least one of you has committed adultery or fornication. The virus doesn't come into existence spontaneously. You have to catch it from somebody.
If you're at fault, you get to feel guilty. You did this to her.
Either way: eeeew, gross... this is worse than buying used underwear and wearing it without washing it.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday August 25 2018, @03:22AM (3 children)
Ummmm......cervical cancer just happens.
Like stupidity.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 25 2018, @04:50AM (2 children)
Overall, it is thought that cancer is a matter of 1/3 starting genetics, 1/3 environment, and 1/3 just bad luck. That is all cancers though.
For many cancers, nearly all can be traced to a specific cause. For example, asbestos causes a very specific cancer. Essentially all cases of that cancer are caused by asbestos.
Similarly, the vast majority of cervical cancer can be traced to HPV, which is a sexually transmitted disease.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Gaaark on Saturday August 25 2018, @11:03AM (1 child)
More along the lines of
"Diethylstilbestrol (DES)
Diethylstilbestrol (DES) is a form of estrogen. It was used between 1940 and 1971 to treat women with certain problems during pregnancy, such as miscarriages. It has not been approved for use in pregnant women since the 1970s.
Daughters of women who took DES during their pregnancy have a higher than average risk of developing a rare type of cervical cancer called clear cell carcinoma. Some studies also suggest that daughters of women who took DES may have a higher risk of developing precancerous changes of the cervix and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the cervix."
http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/cancer-type/cervical/risks [cancer.ca]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 27 2018, @08:47AM
So yes, you'll have other causes, but most of these are HPV. That's why there has been a sharp drop in cancer rates due to vaccination.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/hpv-cervical-cancer-rates-significant-drop-nhs-public-health-england-study-a8403176.html [independent.co.uk]
So... screening is easy, but it also may become a moot point as the *efficacy* of continuing the screening as done currently are no longer there.
As for you, go get yourself a prostate exam. Simpler and cheaper and also saves lives.
PS. Bringing up your anecdotal evidence as proof of policy that applies to entire population is as bringing up the weather event and saying how it indicates this or that about climate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Friday August 24 2018, @05:38PM (2 children)
Sigh....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @06:08PM
A simple story on updated recommendations for diagnostic screening with more than half the replies trolls, off topic political crap, and conspiratorial nonsense.
I haven't been coming here that often because of the declining quality of comments, but this is a particularly bad.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @06:12PM
I was trying to figure out why there was a sudden uptick in trolling. My best guess is that Trump's downfall is triggering a wave of anxiety as the fools realize that he actually is a bad guy. To deal with this they fall back on attacking liberals, women, and minorities.
Any other ideas? Perhaps it is just some sad sack who got rejected last weekend?