Currently Your HPV test Confirms Your Pap Findings, New Guidelines May Switch This Up

Most women have not ever had a Human Papilloma Virus.(HPV) test although we know that the root of cervical cancer resides with cells of the cervix being transformed into precancerous and then cancerous tissue. Many women are even told they should not have a HPV test because it is such a common infection without consequence, it may cause unnecessary testing if done too often on the wrong patients. Most women who have had HPV testing were first found to have an abnormal pap, although testing both HPV and the cells by pap together is starting to be more commonly performed.
Roche's Cobas HPV DNA test got a unanimous "yes" vote by and FDA committee to becoming the "test instead of the pap test," as the first screen for cervical cancer. Final FDA approval is waiting.Pap tests then would only be added on to women who have a positive HPV test. The reasons for this lies in the accuracy and ease of this test and in the data that shows that while we do a great job now, we can improve detection, and possibly even save health care dollars with a new strategy. Pap smears alone are only 50% accurate, but the HPV test, based on the Roche ATHENA trial are thought to be 90% accurate. But there is a lot for individual patients to consider. Do you understand the switch? What will your gyno recommend, and how would you as a woman handle getting told you just got tested for "an STD" instead of getting tested for "cancer." And since your HPV status can change with each partner, are you going to want more frequent HPV tests than you currently want pap smears? The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has questions about the new pap smear and HPV test proposals and has raised the questions about testing and specifically how we will get recommendations for different age groups. Gynos will be watching this story carefully, and women should be too. Dr. Suzanne Trupin was a principal investigator in the ATHENA trial and has been a consultant to Roche.

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Passing Your Uterine Lining, Menstrual Period Norms

Decidual Cast Periods can be fairly easy, passing some tissue at a time, or off can come the whole lining in one piece called a decidual cast. Generally the lining of the uterus is only 6-8 mm thick at the time of the menstrual period, and it is shed gradually, a few cells at a time. The decidual cast is when the entire lining passes spontaneously. It's not uncommon, but it usually both uncomfortable, and alarming to some. But us women are designed to have some sort of periods Or Not? We have to pass tissue each month. Or Not? Are they good for us? Or Not? Do we want them? Or Not? Is this something that is individual? Or Not? It's a complex topic that I will be discussing a lot over my time in this blog. So lets start with basics: How much do we bleed and what are we loosing, and just what was this that the patient passed? And another basic: track your periods, and the Women's Health Practice site http://www.womenshealthpractice.com/media/pdf/menstrual_chart.pdf you...

Post-Endometrial Ablation Syndrome

If you have had an endometrial ablation and have developed symptoms of pelvic pain you might have post endometrial ablation syndrome. What is post-endometrial ablation syndrome? It is a constellation of symptoms due to entrapped blood or tissue within a uterus that has previously undergone an endometrial ablation. We are able to diagnose this at Women's Health Practic e but occasionally other conditions are causing similar symptoms. Other complications of endometrial ablation include pregnancy, risks from pre-existing conditions such as a polyp or fibroid, an infection of the uterus, or a pregnancy. If you have had a tubal ligation then it is possible that the condition could be post-ablation tubal sterilization syndrome. The ablation procedure is designed to destroy all lining tissue, but in fact there is no way to confirm the completeness of the ablation. It is thought that either residual or regrowth of the tissue is producing the symptoms of post-endometrial ablation syndrom...

You Have an IUD: But a Positive Pregnancy Test

Fortunately IUD pregnancy failures are rare. But if you have an IUD for contraception, and you get a positive pregnancy test, you probably ask yourself, what next? Well, make your gyno appointment promptly, this is a condition that is not typically an emergency, but it can be and it’s not handled over the phone or on a blog, or through self diagnosis! That being said, some researchers from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas decided to look back at over 4100 women who had IUDs and of those 42 cases who became pregnant in their institution, over about a year period of time, to help understand what these women could expect when they got to their gyno and what actually happened to their pregnancies. Accurate pregnancy diagnosis, pelvic examination, and pelvic ultrasound were the cornerstones of the evaluations. They had very specific ways they looked at their ultrasound to prove there was no pregnancy in the fallopian tube, or partially in the fallopian tube...

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