Experts Recommend Home Screening For Cervical Cancer To Save Lives: Everything You Need To Know About DIY Pap smears

New Delhi: Cervical cancer is a rare but deadly cancer of the cervix – the lowest part of the uterus. Symptoms of cervical cancer include bleeding between periods or after sex. Smelly discharge, low back pain, abdominal pain are also symptoms of the disease. However, many people remain asymptomatic in the initial stages of the disease and only find out when it has progressed. Treatment for cervical cancer includes surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy, but prevention is still touted as a better way to manage the disease.

Cervical cancer can be prevented with a Pap smear screening, as well as an HPV vaccine. Given the recent decline in cervical cancer screening, experts have recommended home screening for cervical cancer, which can help save lives.

Home screening for cervical cancer recommended by experts

Experts said women should be able to have their cervical cancer checkups at home, which can help save lives. Do-it-yourself smear tests can omit the need for physical screening, which many people put off due to embarrassment, a busy schedule and now even COVID-19. A survey by a trusted cancer foundation also found that 62% of women would prefer a home screening method, given that it is reliable and proven easy.

The home test will involve taking a quick swab from inside the vagina and sending it in an envelope for lab testing. Doctors will check the sample for HPV, which is the cause of 99.7 percent of cervical cancer cases.

During regular cervical screening, offered to women between the ages of 25 and 64, a small sample of cells is taken from the cervix – the cervix – and tested for HPV. However, home sampling appears to be a more accurate, comfortable, and reliable method of doing the same job.

Two studies – one started in London in January 2021, after Dumfries and Galloway in the summer, will be conducted to see if there are more practitioners of the home testing method for cervical cancer.

If the incidence is found to be high, the home test kits will be rolled out by the NHS in the UK.

Learn more about the DIY smear test.

The official name of the DIY smear test is HPV self-sampling. A self-sample using a long swab will also test for HPV in the same way as the current method. After the sample, which doesn’t need to touch the cervix, you can mail it to a lab, where they’ll check for high-risk HPV. Women who have HPV will be asked to come for a regular cervical screening test.

“We have already run two projects in Dumfries running these self-samples and the women found them easy to use and had no problems or discomfort using them.” The validity of the test is not in question, how it will be used in the population is what we are trying to test and hopefully can provide the data to inform the national conversation, ”said Dr William Forson, an obstetrician and gynecologist. involved in the pilot study in Dumfries and Galloway.

According to studies, women are able to collect good samples and the self-test also gives accurate results, when the kit is used correctly. A meta-analysis of studies to date has been published in the British Medical Journal in 2018. The test is relatively much more comfortable, as women do not need to go to their general surgery, nor the speculum involved – l device used to open the vagina for a more precise sample.

Disclaimer: The tips and suggestions mentioned in the article are provided for informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional medical advice. Always consult your doctor or healthcare professional if you have specific questions about a medical problem.