Just because you return an abnormal Pap Smear does not necessarily mean
you have cancer. An abnormal test result may mean that you have either
atypia, wart virus (also known as Human Papilloma Virus or HPV) changes or
CIN.
Atypia usually means that slight inexplicable changes have
occurred in the cells of the cervix. If your doctor suspects that Wart
Virus is the cause of these changes, you will need to have another Smear
in six months, and then another six months later, in order to monitor
these changes.
Wart Virus is a virus similar to that which causes warts on
other parts of the body. It is commonly cited as a cause of cancer of the
cervix. If this virus is detected, you will need to have six-monthly Pap
Smears for a year, and you may require a colposcopy.
If the colposcopy shows the virus is present without any other abnormal
cells, you should have Pap Smears every six months until you return two
consecutive normal smears.
CIN stands for Cervical Intra-epithelial Neoplasia. CIN has the
potential to become invasive cervical cancer. CIN is graded into three
stages of severity, from CIN 1 (mild dysplasia) through CIN 2 (moderate
dysplasia) to CIN 3 (severe dysplasia/carcinoma in situ).
If left untreated, CIN may either return to normal, persist or
eventually progress to invasive cervical cancer. Several studies have
shown that approximately 33-50% of cases of CIN 1 and 2 return to normal
without treatment. Even cases of CIN 3 have been seen to return to normal
however, the more severe an abnormality is, the less likely it is to
regress.
Progression times from CIN 3 to invasive cancer range from one to 30
years.
Cancer of the cervix develops in the following stages:
Stage 0
This stage is also known as carcinoma in situ, or CIN III. This is not
true cancer, but a pre-cancerous stage where the abnormal cells are still
limited to the superficial skin and have not invaded the deeper tissues of
the cervix.
Stage I
Cancer is limited to the cervix itself.
