An Editorial in last week's American Family Physician on the recent USPSTF guidelines for cervical cancer screening.
Advances in understanding the natural history of HPV infection and cervical cancer biology have revealed that HPV infections generally are transient. Among high-risk HPV subtypes, 70 percent of infections regress within two years, suggesting that less aggressive testing among younger women will allow for the spontaneous regression of HPV-associated abnormalities before screening is initiated.
I've been discussing these revised guidelines with patients since early this year.
