What do they check for when you have a pap smear done?!
Question: They check for abnormal cells amongst other things. It is very important that you have one, I was 16 when I had my first and it turned out to be one of the best things I could have done as abnormal cells were detected and I had to have surgery, a cone biopsy meaning some of my cervix had to be cut out. If I didn't have the pap smear I would have had to have a hysterectemy and would never have been able to have children!
Answers: They check for abnormal cells amongst other things. It is very important that you have one, I was 16 when I had my first and it turned out to be one of the best things I could have done as abnormal cells were detected and I had to have surgery, a cone biopsy meaning some of my cervix had to be cut out. If I didn't have the pap smear I would have had to have a hysterectemy and would never have been able to have children!
Cervical cancer and precancerous changes to the cervix.
It's a test for cervical cancer. It's painless, but perhaps slightly embarrassing because the nurse or the doctor must gently scrape your cervix in order to obtain a sample for testing. That means, of course, you must expose your most intimate self to the person who must take the sample.
The cells on the slide are checked for signs that they're changing from normal. Cells go through a series of changes before they turn into cancer. A Pap smear can show if your cells are going through these changes long before you have cancer. Cervical cancer is not life-threatening if it's caught early. This is why getting regular Pap smears is so important.