Doctors Overprescribing the Pap Test
MONDAY, Nov. 2 (HealthDay News) -- In 2002 and 2003, screening guidelines for the cervical cancer-detecting Pap test were changed significantly, yet fewer than one-third of U.S. primary care physicians follow those guidelines, according to a recent study.
Many overprescribe the screen, telling researchers that they would recommend it to virgins (most cervical cancers arise from a sexually transmitted virus), women with inoperable cancers and even women who have had their cervix surgically removed.
Overall, the study found that only 28 percent of internal medicine doctors, 21 percent of general practitioners and 16 percent of obstetricians/gynecologists use the Pap screen in the recommended way.
"We conducted a nationally representative survey of primary care physicians in the U.S., and found that the majority of physicians do not have guideline-consistent screening recommendations," said the study's lead author, K. Robin Yabroff, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md.
However, the researchers also found that the physicians said "guidelines were influential in their practice," according to Yabroff.
The findings are published in the Nov. 3 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
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