Unfortunately, most of us have at some stage heard about a woman who had regular smears, and did everything right, and she still got cervical cancer. It unfortunately does happen, but thankfully only rarely. The press are likely to give widespread publicity to these tragic events, but less to the fact that the lives of hundreds of women a year in Australia are saved by cervical screening, or that the majority of women who die of cervical cancer each year did not have pap smears.

How women with apparently normal smears suddenly develop cancer is uncertain. It is, in general, a slow-growing disease, but may in some cases grow faster. Because there are so many steps involved in the process of screening (taking the smear adequately, sampling the entire cervix, preparing the slide, interpreting the appearance of the cells, ensuring the woman knows her result), there is also room for human error. The quality control guidelines in cervical cytology in Australia are of a high standard, but no system involving humans can ever be perfect. There are constantly new measures being put in place to improve the system further.

The pap smear test will pick up nine out of ten serious (cancerous or precancerous) lesions. If a woman has symptoms, like abnormal bleeding, and has a normal pap smear, she should still have her cervix further investigated.

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