Worried and slightly confused

Cervical screening results
1

Hi all

I’m hoping I guess for some reassurance.

I went for my smear test at the start of January and then unexpectedly received a letter saying that I was HPV positive with borderline cell changes a few days ago and a colposcopy had Been booked for next week . The last few days have been utterly awful and I have been going out of my mind with worry and think I have quite honestly search the entire Internet for everything that I can find. I have just about reassured myself that it was likely absolutely nothing, and then the nurse that conducted my smear test Said that her notes say that the test was referred as urgent, as they couldn’t interpret the test very well due to there being a little bit of blood in the sample. So now I am questioning why it says borderline? My nurse said she couldn’t see anything of worry in the letter and the smear would have picked up anything badly wrong . now I’m worried that if they couldn’t interpret the test doesn’t that class as an inconclusive test?

The sensible part of me says that I have just been called in because of the HPV they want to be better safe than sorry and it could be a complete worry over nothing But just wandering if anyone has experienced anything similar ?

Thanks in advance

2

Hi @jann

An inconclusive sample would be when there isnt enough cells to test so they need to repeat the sample, when they cant interpret the results they usually report it as ASCUS (atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance) basically meaning they have no idea what the cells look like but they dont look normal, all our smears do is describe how different the cells look to normal ones

It could mean that your smear was misreported or there could have been a debate with the pathogists where one said borderline and the other said ASCUS so it was reported as borderline but to be safe as you would be going for a colposcopy anyway, theyve put you through as urgent… it sounds very much like theyre trying to cover their own backs xx

3

Thank you that makes me feel a bit better . The nurse seemed to think That the urgency was just because of having HPV as well . Just so worrying isn’t it .