The Pap test is a screening test that has been very successful at finding signs of cervical cancer, or cells that may turn into cancer cells in the future. To perform the test, your doctor gently scrapes cells from your uterine cervix and then sends the cells to a laboratory for review. The test allows laboratory professionals to spot early signs of cancer so that, if any are found, you can be treated before the disease actually develops.

The conventional Pap smear, developed by Dr. Papanicolaou in the 1940's, is a good test for detecting most cases of cervical cancer. In fact, in the last 50 years, it has helped reduce the number of cervical cancer deaths from 35,000 a year to less than 5,000 today. But, like any procedure that has been around for so long, there are certain aspects of the smear that today's technology can improve upon. The ThinPrep® Pap Test is the only liquid-based cytology method approved by the U.S. FDA as "significantly more effective" than the conventional Pap smear for detection of cervical abnormalities.