Dr. Elfelt Cervical Cancer Screening:

Hi my name is Dr. Tim Elfelt I work at the Single Oak office I’m an obstetrician gynecologist and practicing in the Temecula area for 30 some years and today we’re going to talk about cervical cancer screening cervical cancer screening is important in many parts of the world it’s one of the leading causes of gynecological cancer deaths but since the 1950s in the united states we’ve been doing screening with pap smears and so in the united states cervical cancer has become les much less common than in other parts of the world where they don’t do it in recent years they’ve determined that there is a cofactor in cervical cancer the HPV virus and so now we do both HPV virus screening and a pap smear which is cervical cytology it’s important because it eliminates cervical cancer it’s a very rare occurrence now in the united states we start screening for cervical cancer with young ladies that are 21 years old and the recommendation currently is until not until 65 years of age there have been some questions about that and there are some examples where you may screen past age 65. recently there have been changes in the timing of pap smears starting at age 21 is what is recommended and then every three years until the age of 30. at age 30 we start doing pap smears and HPV screening and once you’ve had two negative exams you can go to every five years of screening this doesn’t mean that you no longer need your annual exam it’s just no longer do you need the pap smear screening every year I think when you come in to talk to your doctor about cervical cancer screening you want to ask about the HPV virus what puts you at risk there are risk factors besides HPV virus that increase your risk for cervical cancer including early onset of intercourse uh multiple sexual partners smoking and several others so you want to ask your physician what if you have any risk factors and how often you should be screened so please make an appointment come in if you’re due for a cervical cancer screening this is the disease that is preventable thank you