Concerns over false negative pap smear results have led to a potential investigation of lawsuits around the country. Women who received a false negative pap smear may have gone about their lives assuming that they were not at risk for the development of cervical cancer.

Unfortunately, the issuance of a false negative pap smear because of improper testing or lab analysis procedures could mislead a woman to think that she is safe. If those women were ultimately diagnosed with cervical cancer that should have been caught in pap smear test result, those victims may have grounds to pursue a false negative pap smear lawsuit.

Women who have been diagnosed with cervical cancer in the past five years after receiving a false negative pap smear result may be eligible to participate in an ongoing lawsuit investigation. Pap smears are extremely effective at detecting pre-cervical cancer, and pap smears are often used as the primary way to tell whether a woman is at risk.

A 2011 case in which a woman passed away from cervical cancer despite a 2008 pap test that showed cancer cells led to a wrongful death lawsuit. A pap smear collects cells from the cervix to have them examined under a microscope to identify cancer or pre-cancerous changes.

Abnormal pap test results are often the first screening opportunity for a woman to identify whether she is at risk or already suffering from cervical cancer.

The American Cancer Society previously recommended that women receive annual pap smears when they became sexually active or at age 18, whichever of these occurred earlier. However, women are now recommended to have a pap test once within each three year period between ages 21 and 29, and those women between ages 30 and 65 are recommended to receive a pap test once in every five or so years.

Women often rely only on a pap smear test to figure out whether or not they are safe and given the longer period in between pap smears, it could be misleading for women to receive a false negative pap smear.

A false negative pap smear may allow cancer to develop more quickly when it should have been identified by the original lab result and given a woman the chance to pursue additional tests such as a colposcopy, endocervical scraping or cone biopsy. All of those procedures collect samples of the cervical tissue to identify whether or not the woman is at risk of development of cervical cancer or already coping with it.

A woman who received a false negative pap smear result in a recent doctor’s visit and then was diagnosed with cervical cancer could have grounds to take action against the entity that reviewed the test results.

The development of cervical cancer can come as a sudden surprise following normal and clear pap smear results, but this outcome may have been tied to a false negative. Determining liability in these cases can be difficult, but the lab analysis could have been faulty.