This is what the team of Kathleen Decker, responsible for evaluating cancer screening programs for the organization CancerCare Manitoba, found.

Searching the province’s medical records, researchers identified 666 Manitobans over the age of 18 who had been diagnosed with cervical cancer between 1989 and 2001. For each woman, five more of the same age and living in the region. same region, but who had not been diagnosed with cancer, were selected to form the control group.

In the five years before their diagnosis, 54% of women with cancer had not had a Pap test, compared to 33% in the control group.

Yet women with cancer had had as many opportunities during visits to their doctors to have a Pap test as other women.

However, the researchers were unable to verify whether the doctor neglected to recommend the test to them during their visit or whether the women simply refused to take it.

The importance of the doctor’s gender

The research team found, however, that almost twice as many women followed by a female doctor had taken the test.

Likewise, those under the care of a specialist, such as a gynecologist, were four times more likely to have been tested than those under the care of a general practitioner.

In addition, women living in urban areas were 1,2 times more likely to have taken the test than women living in rural areas.

In Canada, it is recommended that young women have a pap smear soon after their first sexual encounter. Depending on the results, the test is repeated at an interval of 1 year to 3 years.

Women who are vaccinated against infections with HPV (the family of viruses that cause cervical cancer) should also be tested, since the vaccine is not 100% effective.

Dominique Forget – PasseportSanté.net

1. Decker K, et al, Papanicolaou test utilization and frequency of screening opportunities among women diagnosed with cervical cancer, Open Medicine, 2009, Vol. 3(3), 140-147.