Highlights
- •Benefits of cervical screening in women 60 years and older are decreased cervical cancer incidence and mortality.
- •The harms of screening include: anxiety, discomfort, ramifications of false negatives and false positives.
Abstract
Objective
To review the literature concerning the role of cervical screening in women 60 years
and older.
Methods
Literature review was conducted using PubMed and the search terms cervical neoplasm,
cancer, middle aged, elderly, aged, postmenopausal, cervical cytology and screening.
To be included in the review, the article must have been in the English language.
The search focused on publications from 2000 forward.
Results
The case control and modeling studies that addressed the role of cervical cytology
screening in women 60 and older were reviewed. The outcomes of interest included:
(1) the benefits of screening in terms of decrease rate of cervical cancer incidence
(6 studies) and mortality (3 studies); (2) the duration of protection of the last
screening test (4 studies); and (3) the harms of screening older women including false
positive test results and cost.
Conclusions
Cervical cytology screening is beneficial for women over 60 years in terms of preventing
the occurrence and death from cervical cancer. A negative cytology test appears to
have 5 years of protection in this age group. Age of last screen with in an organized
screening program may differ compared to the goals and wishes of individual women.
Keywords
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: October 01, 2014
Accepted:
September 24,
2014
Received in revised form:
September 23,
2014
Received:
September 11,
2014
Identification
Copyright
© 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
