ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Thursday, March 27, 1997               TAG: 9703270045
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL   PAGE: A-3  EDITION: METRO 
DATELINE: GENEVA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS

PAP TESTS GIVE FALSE NEGATIVES UP TO 30% OF TIME, WHO SAYS WOMEN DIE NEEDLESSLY

When cancerous or precancerous cervical cells are found early, treatment is almost always effective.

Pap tests to detect cervical cancer are missing trouble signs up to 30 percent of the time, the World Health Organization said Wednesday.

Improvements in performing and interpreting the tests could greatly reduce deaths among the half-million women who develop cervical cancer each year, the U.N. health agency said. As it is, more than half those women die, WHO said.

American physician George Papanicolaou developed the test, in which medical workers scrape cells from the cervix - the neck of the uterus - for examination. When cancerous or potentially cancerous cells are found early, treatment is almost always effective.

Most cervical cancer deaths are in developing countries where lack of money makes mass screening impossible. But in some countries, the Pap test has reduced cervical cancer deaths by up to 70 percent since it was introduced in 1943, WHO said.

When done and read correctly, the test detects up to 95 percent of potentially hazardous cell changes, the agency said.

But mistakes in performing and interpreting the test mean the exam is providing false negative results from 10 percent to 30 percent of the time, WHO said. False negatives wrongly indicate that the woman has no problem.

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