Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Cervical cancer screening tests-Pap smears and HPV tests-are frequently overused among commercially insured women with average risk of developing cancer, a new study from researchers at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center finds.
Jason Wright
The study, involving nearly 2 million women who were screened for cervical cancer between 2013 and 2014, found that nearly two-thirds received unnecessary tests in the next three years, before their next recommended screening.
“If there was no potential for harm from screening, it would not be unreasonable to do more frequent testing,” says Jason D. Wright, MD, the Sol Goldman Associate Professor of Gynecologic Oncology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and senior author of the study. “The issue is there are real downsides to over-screening.”