Cervical cancer screening tests often overused, study finds

Cervical cancer screening tests—Pap smears and HPV tests—are frequently overused in the care of commercially insured women with average risk of developing cancer, a new JAMA study from a team of researchers at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center finds.

The study, led by Jason D. Wright, MD, chief of the division of gynecologic oncology at CUIMC, involved nearly 2 million women who were screened for cervical cancer between 2013 and 2014 and found that nearly two-thirds received unnecessary tests in the next three years, before their next recommended screening.

Read more about this study and its recommendations at the CUIMC Newsroom.