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News release: NationalJanuary 8, 2004 For more information, call: Kaiser Permanente first healthcare organization to use HPV testing as standard screening for cervical cancer Oakland, CA – Kaiser Permanente, the nation's largest nonprofit health plan, will routinely offer hundreds of thousands of women in Northern California newly approved DNA testing to more accurately predict which women are at risk of developing cervical cancer. No other health care organization offers the screening routinely to women. The new DNA test for the virus, recently approved by the FDA based in part on a cooperative research study by the National Cancer Institute and Kaiser Permanente, will be routinely offered by this spring to women 30 and over in Kaiser Permanente's Northern California Region. Kaiser Permanente has about 781,145 female members in Northern California between the ages of 30 and 64. "Cervical cancer is one of the few cancers we know how to prevent," says Walter Kinney, MD, a gynecological oncologist for Kaiser Permanente in Sacramento who led a pilot screening program of the test. "This enhanced testing enables us to more accurately predict which women are at risk of cervical cancer and which women can be spared unnecessary invasive procedures when they have an abnormal Pap test." Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer in women and one of the few cancers that can be prevented with early detection. Unlike most cancers, cervical cancer is typically caused by a virus called human papillomavirus (HPV). The sexually transmitted virus is present in 99.7 percent of all cervical cancer cases. "Our goal is to improve early detection of the virus and prevent women from developing cervical cancer, the treatment of which is very difficult, physically and psychologically on women," said Kinney. "The treatment for cervical cancer is a radical hysterectomy or chemotherapy and concurrent radiation therapy, and the patient has to endure the treatment as well as the loss of fertility. By utilizing this test we can improve early detection rates and reduce the number of women subjected to uncomfortable biopsy procedures." "This is the most significant step toward detecting and preventing cervical cancer since the Pap test was implemented in the mid-19th century," said Ruth Shaber, MD, an ob/gyn and Director of Women's Health Services for Kaiser Permanente's Northern California Region. " For women with inconclusive Pap results, this testing will help determine if they need further evaluation. For those who pass, she and her physician can be nearly certain there is no significant cervical disease or cancer." The new testing will be done in addition to the traditional Pap test. Women who test positive for the virus will need to continue getting Pap tests every year. For the vast majority who will test negative on both tests - about 93 percent - the result will be peace of mind that they were screened with the most rigorous test available, and fewer visits, biopsies and surgical procedures that typically result from abnormal Pap test results. So far, 20,000 Kaiser Permanente members have received the enhanced screening as part of the pilot program. Of the women to whom combined testing was offered, approximately 90 percent have chosen it in the Sacramento and Napa/Solano pilot sites. Moving this test out of the research setting and into clinical practice is an important step forward in protecting women's health. The traditional Pap test, developed nearly 60 years ago, detects cell abnormalities that may indicate potential cervical pre-cancer or cancer. The American Cancer Society and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecologists have endorsed this enhanced screening for cervical cancer.
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