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.
