Saturday, November 13, 2004

The end of the PAP smear?

Technology News: Health : Vaccines May Nearly End Cervical Cancer
If approved in a few years, as expected, the vaccine likely would be recommended for girls ages 10 to 12 in the United States and elsewhere. The study, to be reported Saturday in the journal The Lancet, is the second this month showing a vaccine's success against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus, believed to cause most cervical cancers.

There have been several trials, all promising.

We may have to wait for the current cohort to die off, but sometime in the nex 60 years we may see the end of the PAP smear. If we eliminate HPV cervical cancer there are better ways to spend health care energies than PAP smears.

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