More than 60,000 women in the United Kingdom who went through a pap smear exam and got their cancer test results may have gotten inaccurate information. According to a recent study, these women who completed their pap smear exam may have been wrongly given an all-clear.

False Negative Reports May Have Been Sent After Pap Smear Exam

The 60,000 women got a notification that their pap smear exam results were negative, and this screening services’ failure may mean more than 1,000 women have been wrongly been given the incorrect result. Many women could have relied on these results and assumed their health was fine.

The pap smear exam is given to women across a broad age category as a screening tool for potential problems. Cervical cancer, in particular, may show early signs of development when women get an abnormal pap smear. This is the primary screening tool for cervical cancer, and it’s one that women have come to rely on for many years. The test results are critical for determining whether or not a woman needs additional testing or treatments.

Although guideline recommendations have changed in recent years, some women may go as long as five years without an additional pap smear after they have received several negative results. Mistakes in testing could allow cancerous cells to develop during that critical time.

The screening services have been regularly evaluating sample cervical screening cancer results after concerns brought forward by inspectors indicated that mistakes may have been made. More than 900 samples of pap smear exam results were analyzed and identified that at least 17 cases in which women were told that their results were negative.

Eight of those women were referred for further investigation after pre-cancerous changes and abnormalities were identified. The screening services have looked into the samples taken for more than 2,500 patients after a pap smear exam between April 2016 and September 2017.

When mistakes were uncovered, those patients have received letters. Health officials, however, believe that future investigations may be required to identify whether or not any of the other 60,000 women who had smears at hospitals across Essex were also affected.

If the error rate identified in the initial samples from the current pap smear exam case set would apply to the population as a whole, it means that more than 1,100 women were given the wrong result. All of these women may need to be contacted about how to identify whether or not they are at risk of cervical cancer.

The laboratory services under question after this pap smear exam result in services for more than 100 physician practices across the area and treats more than 750,000 patients. Inspectors were previously concerned about service quality after a merger was carried out. The staff responded by saying that changes have been made to their processes and staff members received extra training after the last inspector visit.

Some women who may have received inaccurate results of their pap smear exam have gotten information about contacting hospitals for further evaluation while others have been told to get an additional test.