Test beats pap smear, study finds
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
A new way to test for cervical cancer is more accurate than a pap smear and identifies more dangerous lesions, according to an Italian study published Tuesday. Researchers used the traditional test for the human papilloma virus that causes cervical cancer and combined it with another that indicated specific cancer-causing activity in cells. The test looked for a protein called P16INK4A, which indicates cell changes that show a woman probably has precancerous lesions, the team reported in the journal Lancet Oncology.
