Ever since Dr George Papanacolaou advocated the test for cervical cancer in women – a procedure that is now known as the Papanicolaou Test, or simply the PAP test for short, women the world over have been getting tested regularly by means of this simple test, which can detect cervical womb cancer at an early "pre-cancerous" stage when the disease is curable.
PAP Test for Women Detects Womb Cancer
By showing that the PAP test, which involved taking a scraping of cells from the cervix (the lowermost part of the womb that is situated at the deepest part of the female vagina) could detect womb cancer in its earliest form, Dr Papanicolaou devised one of the most effective screening tests for malignant disease. Following his work, the PAP test has been instrumental in significantly reducing deaths from cervical (womb) cancer throughout the world. This type of womb cancer used to be the leading cause of cancer death for women in the United States – but during the last half century, the number of women developing cervical cancer and the number of women dying from cervical cancer have decreased significantly.
In the USA, for example, less than 13,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2007 while less than five thousand women actually died from cervical cancer (1). In the UK during the second half of the twentieth century, the death rate from cervical cancer in women aged 55-64 dropped by nearly 80% – from 30.0 per 100,000 in 1950-52 to 6.2 per 100,000 in 1998-2000.
Test to Detect Prostate Cancer in Men
Today we have an equally simple test to help us detect prostate cancer in men – a test that (while not being foolproof, certainly helps doctors to detect those men who may be having early prostate cancer. The test involves your family physician examining your prostate gland by inserting a gloved finger into your back passage (a procedure known as a PR examination or a Digital Rectal Exam) and then taking a blood test to measure the level of a substance called PSA in your blood.
in simple terms, the double test – a PR and a PSA – can be called the PAP test for men!
Regular PAP Test for Men
If either of these two tests is abnormal normal, your family doctor will refer you to a specialist - who usually will repeat the tests, and also arrange for an ultrasound scan – a rectal ultrasound scan to image the priostate gland which lies deep within your pelvis. The ultrasound probe is inserted into your back passage- a procedure that is uncomfortable but not painful.
If anything unusual is detected while doing the ultrasound scan you may need to have samples of prostate tissue (biopsies) taken during the scan. This is done by inserting a small needle into the prostate - which can be somewhat painful - so can be done under anaesthesia.
.Prostate cancer, in contrast to Benign Prostate Hyperplasia (BPH), does not draw attention to itself by giving rise to urinary symptoms. By the time the characteristic features of bone pain and haematuria (blood-staining of the urine) appear, the disease is too advanced for cure. Early detection - while the disease is still at a curable stage - is therefore essential and tghis is where all men over the age of fifty years would do well to consider having a PAP Test.
(1). U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group. United States Cancer Statistics: 1999–2007 Incidence and Mortality Web-based Report. Atlanta (GA): Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Cancer Institute; 2010. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/uscs.
Sanjiva Wijesinha - Dr. Sanjiva Wijesinha, Associate Professor at Monash University medical school, writes on health, travel and medical topics.
