For young women getting biennial Pap smears, chlamydia screening opportunities being missed
MONDAY, Nov. 29 (HealthDay News) -- In young women now getting cervical cancer screening every two years instead of annually, health care providers should be aware of other opportunities for chlamydial screening, according to research published in the December issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Guoyu Tao, Ph.D., of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and colleagues used a 2007 administrative database to compare annual chlamydia screening rates of sexually active women aged 15 to 25 years among those who did and did not undergo cervical cancer screening that year. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the likely effect on chlamydia screening of an American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists Practice Bulletin published in 2009, which recommended that cervical cancer screening in women under 30 years should occur every two years rather than annually.
The researchers found that adolescent girls and young women who underwent cervical cancer screening in 2007 had significantly higher chlamydia screening rates than those who did not: for adolescent girls and young women aged 15 to 20, 43.6 versus 9.5 percent, and for women aged 21 to 25, 36.1 versus 12.2 percent. Nine out of 10 sexually active young women had visits for reproductive health services other than cervical cancer screening in 2007, during which chlamydia screening opportunities were available.
"These specimens can be easily collected at visits when adolescent girls and young women might seek other reproductive health services," the authors write. "In addition, simple and sustainable structural interventions to increase chlamydia screening should be implemented and evaluated, such as electronic health record prompts to remind providers of the need for chlamydia screening and physician pay-for-performance to reward appropriate chlamydia screening practices."
Abstract
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