Thousands of women will be able to say goodbye to the infamous Pap test. Health Minister Christian Dubé will announce on Tuesday that this unpopular cervical cancer screening procedure will be phased out and replaced by a simple swab.
In a letter sent to all branches, Assistant Deputy Minister of Health, Dr.re Lucie Opatrny invites the CISSSs and CIUSSSs to immediately reorganize their offer of laboratory services in order to soon be able to offer this new test to patients in all regions of Quebec.
Screening for cancer of the cervix, a disease caused in more than 99% of cases by the human papilloma virus (HPV), will now consist of detect the presence of this virus thanks to a simple genital sample taken using a swab. HPV is normally transmitted during sexual intercourse.
The MSSS is thus following up on the scientific opinion published last January by the National Institute of Excellence in Health and Social Services (INESSS), which deemed this procedure more sensitive and less cumbersome than the traditional Pap test.
Details in the coming months
Once recommended every two or three years, the famous Pap test (created by the Greek doctor Georgios Papanicolaou) required the collection of cells from the cervix in the doctor’s office, followed by cytological analysis of the smear in the laboratory to detect the presence of abnormal cells, which could potentially lead to the development of uterine cancer.
For reasons of efficiency, several countries have already started to switch to the simplified screening technique.
This announcement is part of the development of a vast provincial cervical cancer screening program, which the MSSS wants to be similar to the one announced for lung cancer screening earlier this year.
Details, terms and implementation steps for this new test will be announced in the coming months. INESSS currently recommends that it be offered to women who have not been vaccinated as well as those who have been vaccinated against HPV.
In 2012, approximately 70% of Quebec women aged 18 to 69 had had a Pap test. This examination – which is added to the vaccination of young people against HPV, offered to girls in the fourth year of primary school since 2008, and to boys of the same level since 2016 – would have made it possible to reduce by a factor of 6 to 7 the incidence of cervical cancer in Quebec.
According to the MSSS, 1 in 168 women in Canada will be diagnosed with cervical cancer during her lifetime. In Quebec, in 2021, no less than 290 cases of this cancer were diagnosed, and 80 women died from it.