Women are about to get an extra step in their next Pap smear: the insertion of a special light into the cervix to let doctors actually peer inside as they hunt for the early signs of cancer.
The Food and Drug Administration says this light-enhanced Pap smear, called Speculoscopy, allows doctors to diagnose more cervical abnormalities than the regular Pap test can detect alone.Abnormalities don't necessarily mean cancer, but discovering them means women can be further test-ed immediately so that if cancer is forming, it is caught early enough to cure.
"We're enhancing the ability of the Pap smear to pick things up . . . before they develop into a serious problem," explained Dr. Steven A. Vasilev of City of Hope National Medical Center in Duarte, Calif.
And the device may help determine that a woman who gets Paps only every three years - the standard for many insurance companies - doesn't have a problem lurking that could become dangerous before her next checkup, he added. When Vasilev tested the device, "most women felt it was a reassuring factor."
The system, approved by the FDA last month, was developed by Trylon Corp. Pharmacia & Upjohn Inc. will sell it to doctors beginning in about a week. It will add about $25 to the cost of a regular Pap.
Some 15,000 American women are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year and about 4,800 die. About 50 million Pap smears are performed each year to try to detect cervical cancer early enough to cure - and the tests often find precancerous changes in cells that haven't yet turned into a tumor.
Speculoscopy adds a visual exam to help find those precancerous changes.
In a Pap smear, doctors scrape cells off the cervix and send them to a laboratory to be examined for abnormalities.
For Speculoscopy, doctors attach a tiny light bar to the device that holds open the cervix during the Pap. This Speculite contains chemicals that interact to shine a special wavelength of light.
After the Pap is done, the doctor swabs vinegar in the vagina, shines the Speculite onto the cervix and peers inside through a magnifying glass. The combination of chemical light and vinegar makes normal cells look blue and possibly abnormal ones look white.