I hope you and your loved ones are safe and healthy. I'm new to the forum and I have a quick question. This time last year my smear came back as 'mild dyskariosis'. Did colposcopy and the result was "inflammation". Spoke with my GP and was told it meant there were no changes in cells. Was told to come this year for a repeated test. Got tested in March and got my result as "moderate dyskariosis and high risk HPV detected". Now waiting for colposcopy. Has anything like this happened to any of you? I just find it strange and wonder if the "inflammation" was an error? I'm freaked out as now my worried that when I go to colposcopy they will find cancer as they had missed things. thank you cxx
Sorry that your results have confused and scared you, I'm not an expert but here are my thoughts. Like any clinical tests, neither smear tests nor biopsies are perfect. The tests can falter at various stages of the process e.g. the original sample might not pick up abnormal cells, especially if there are not very many, and both smear tests (cytology) and biopsies (histology) are subject to slight variations in interpretation by laboratory personnel. The fact that patients with abnormalities are closely monitored (e.g. retested within a year) helps to mitigate against the limitations of the tests and the risk of a cancer being missed. Whilst an error on your sample cannot be ruled out it is more likely down to the unavoidable and accepted limitations of the tests. Even if the biopsy had confirmed mild abnormalities I believe you would still have been advised to wait a year for a retest.
To put a perspective on the situation, tens of thousands of women in the UK get results similar to yours and only a tiny minority are diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer. Most women either have pre cancer cells which naturally revert to normal or which may require relatively minor treatment with no further problems. A number of women are diagnosed with non invasive cancer-in-situ but even that is usually cured with relatively minor treatment,
The important thing is to keep following medical advice about screening and retesting etc - something I unfortunately failed to do.
Thank you very much for your reply. I've just seen it! I wish I saw it earlier as it would have made me less anxious. Thank you again and hope you and your loved ones are wel safe. Xx
