As part of a province-wide push for Pap Awareness Week (Oct. 24 to 30), three local clinics have been offering drop-in hours for pap testing this week to encourage Sunshine Coast women to be screened for cervical cancer.
"A lot of women don't have a regular health care provider and so this is to encourage women to go drop in to the local clinics or to call and make an appointment," said Lisa Despins, promotion and education specialist with BC Cancer Agency (BCCA)'s cervical cancer screening program.
Pap tests - also called Papanicolaou tests and Pap smears - screen for cervical cancer by identifying any changes in the cells of the cervix.
The BCCA notes that approximately six women per 100,000 will be diagnosed with cervical cancer annually. More than two-thirds of the women diagnosed have not been having regular Pap tests.
The good news, according to the BCCA, is that cervical cancer is one of the easiest cancers to treat, if it's identified in early stages. According to the agency, if abnormal cells are identified before cancer develops, the cure rate is 100 per cent; when cancer is limited to the surface tissue of the cervix, the cure rate is 80 to 90 per cent.
The BCCA recommends that women start getting Pap tests at 21 or approximately three years after becoming sexually active. It advocates getting screened once a year for the first three years and then, if these results are normal, getting tested every two years thereafter.
This year, the BCCA is spreading the word about Pap testing through an awareness campaign (www.lacecampaign), which features initiatives such as an online Pap reminder service, which will send women annual reminders to help them keep up to date with their Pap testing.
- Locally,
- Sechelt's Sunshine Coast Options for Sexual Health Clinic (#213 - 5710 Teredo St., 604-740-2062) is offering drop-in pap testing Thursday, Oct. 28, and the
- Gibsons Health Unit (494 South Fletcher Rd., 604-886-5600) is offering drop-in hours Friday, Oct. 29, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Earlier this week Gibsons Youth Clinic held drop-in hours for youth under the age of 21.
