What an abnormal pap smear means

By Dr Brigid Monda

Many of us would choose the pain of a dentist’s chair over the most compassionate and sensitive gynecologist’s examination table. You endure a cold speculum — which is torture enough — then it does not seem fair that at the end of it, you hear that your cervix is not perfectly healthy. Being told that you have an abnormal pap smear makes you feel like a time bomb ticking away because most women assume that the problem begins with a capital C — Cancer. But being told that you have a positive smear does not necessarily mean that you have cancer. A negative result means that abnormal cells were not detected. A positive result means that abnormal cells were found but this does not automatically mean that you have cancer. Pre-cancerous cells, means cells that have early changes, which could develop into frank cancer with time.