Recall and Treatment Decisions of Primary Care Providers in Response to Pap Smear Reports

Mortality: What Are the Roles of Risk Factor Prevalence, Screening, and Use of Recommended Treatment?

“…Following an abnormal Pap smear, women must be notified of the result and undergo additional diagnostic testing and treatment of preinvasive (or invasive) disease. Studies have noted variability in physician perception of the importance of recall of patients with abnormal findings for additional diagnostic testing, 93 indicating that some women may not be notified of an abnormal result. At the patient level, many of the same sociodemographic and behavioral factors associated with Pap smear screening are also associated with lack of adherence to follow-up after abnormal findings and with advanced disease at diagnosis, including older age, lower social class, lack of health insurance, and concerns about a cancer diagnosis or inconvenience, or forgetfulness.…”

Efficacy of Treatment of Inflammatory Cytologic Abnormalities Detected By Papanicolaou Smears: A Pilot Study

“…Inflammatory changes alone have been shown to have a low predictive value for a significant infectious process with the typical vaginal and cervical pathogens [6]. In spite of this finding, published data show that 84% of all practitioners and 77% of obstetrician–gynecologists surveyed recommended treatment with antibiotics as the first step in managing inflammation on an otherwise adequate cervical cytology specimen [7]. When treating patients empirically for inflammatory Pap smears, 74% of practitioners have been shown to use metronidazole [8].…”

Automated Recommendation for Cervical Cancer Screening and Surveillance

“…Because of the complexity of cervical cancer screening guidelines and need for a detailed chart review, clinicians may not always follow best-practice recommendations. 1,2 Clinical decision support (CDS) systems offer a potential solution, 3,4 and they have been reported to improve screening rates for preventive services. [5][6][7][8][9][10] However, most systems are limited to providing screening rather than surveillance recommendations for management of abnormal findings.…”