Early detection is not synonymous with detecting precancerous cells. Lesions can move from cancerous to precancerous quickly, or even develop cancer immediately. The one is not a neccessary precursor to the other.
Morever, simply because you have detected a precancerous condition that DOES NOT mean, even using every treatment known to modern man, that the patient will not still develop cancer! Even if you excise every precancerous lesion, you can STILL GET CANCER AND DIE. Or get a hysterectomy or chemo. Those things are not nice!
"you still have a better than 50% chance of developing other cervical cancers."
Do you even 'get' statistics? Did you take that class? How can a person have a better than 50% chance of developing cervical cancer?
30% of cervical cancer is NOT linked to HPV 16 or 18. Gardasil cannot prevent cancer in these cases. 70% of cervical cancer is linked to HPV 16 and 18. These cancers can be virtually eliminated by Gardasil because it is 100% and 99% effective in preventing these two types of HPV, respectively.
That is all. There is no magical 50% of anything anywhere that anyone is getting. No one has a 50% chance of getting cervical cancer. That's crazy.
Also HPV causes more than cervical cancer. Which a pap smear isn't going to catch because, hey, it's not on a cervix!
But I don't think you're actually reading anything anyone says. You've been saying the same blatanly false nonsense for 20 posts even though you've been corrected half a dozen times. So I am going to stop reading your posts and we will be even.
What? Of course it is! detecting pre cancerous cellular changes is what early detection is all about! Then treatment can be done that isn't as evasive as treating full blown cancer.
That's the importance of a regular pap smear, a mammogram. finding a lump after it has spread into the lymph nodes is too late, finding an irregularity before it turns into a lump you can feel or see it means you don't need to cut your breast off, go through drastic chemotherapy, or have a hystorectomy. Odds are, with early detection, you will still be able to have children, and not loose any parts.
The wonder drug, and all this misleading information about it, will cause women to skip this simple but vital regular test, that could save a lot of grief, and possibly their lives by initiating early treatment that prevents the cancer from developing in the first place.
I never claimed a pap smear was a treatment, it's merely a test, as a mamogram is an exray that can spot a problem long before you FEEL a problem.