It also means nagging worries about cervical cancer, perhaps for several months. Unilab, a Tarzana laboratory, offers a test that they say can eliminate some of the wait, worry and inconvenience. But there will be a group of women who will not successfully resolve the infection. It will persist and cause cells to change. When HPV is found, women get Pap smears every three to six months.
Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women after breast cancer.
One-third of women diagnosed with cervical cancer die, and 80 percent of these did not have a Pap test within the previous five or more years. That's why getting a Pap smear annually is so important, says Dr. Kathryn Pruzinsky, an assistant clinical professor in the Department of Reproductive Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine. It's also not clear whether there will be false positives. On the plus side, an HPV test is helpful if a woman has a persistently abnormal Pap smear. The bottom line, Pruzinsky says, is that if a woman has a continuously abnormal Pap smear, it is still necessary to take a tissue sample to determine treatment.