An estimated 1.4 million adolescent girls and young women in the U.S. might have received an unnecessary pelvic exam between 2011 and 2017, according to a new study. And an estimated 1.6 million might have received an unnecessary Pap test. The authors of the study, which was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, say the overuse of these procedures — which can cause false-positives and anxiety — led to an estimated $123 million annually in needless expenses in 2014 alone.
The study was based on data from 3,410 respondents to the National Survey of Family Growth, between the ages of 15 and 20. The study authors assessed whether the Pap test or bimanual pelvic exam given to each respondent had been in accordance with current clinical guidelines. They found that more than half of the pelvic exams administered, and nearly three quarters of the Pap tests, might have been unnecessary.
Dr. George Sawaya, a professor of obstetrics at the University of California, San Francisco, and the lead investigator on the study, says that the results indicate that health care providers are not paying close enough attention to current best practices.
"Medical practice is very slow to change," Sawaya says. "For many years there's been a very ingrained idea about what young women and girls should have as a part of gynecological care. A lot of what we're seeing is a holdover of doctors who are just not aware of the guidelines."
Read more:
