This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Topic Collections  • Oncology  • Women's Health  • Women's Health, Other  • Diagnosis  • Alert me on articles by topic

Jeanne Mandelblatt, MD, MPH; William Lawrence, MD, MSc; Bin Yi, MS; Jason King, MPH

Arch Intern Med. 2004;164:248.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

No clinician would argue that the first consideration in deciding to offer a preventive service is that we do no harm. This credo would be easier to adhere to if all physicians had a crystal ball in their armamentarium. In addition to projecting future risk of cervical cancer, we need to know whether a woman is destined to die of another cause before she would develop cervical cancer. Older women are a remarkably heterogeneous group and many have very long life expectancies. At present, the rates of cervical cancer in previously screened women are low. However, there are several reasons to believe that this may not always remain the case. First, changing sexual practices may increase rates of HPV infection. Second, as women age, they have a lower cell-mediated immune capacity, which increases the probability that . . . [Full Text of this Article]

From the Department of Medicine and Oncology, Georgetown University Medical Center, Lombardi Cancer Center, Washington, DC. The authors have no relevant financial interest in this article.