Life / Medicine

Cancer Screening (Pap Test)

Papanicolaou and Traut showed in 1941-43 that cancer cells shed from the cervix can be seen in a smear; Pap screening programmes later cut cervical cancer deaths sharply.

George Papanicolaou, who had followed hormone cycles in smears since 1917, first saw cancer cells in a cervical smear in 1925 and presented the method in 1928 to a sceptical audience. His 1941 paper with Herbert Traut and a 1943 monograph on over 3,000 cases won acceptance, and population screening spread from the 1950s. US cervical cancer deaths fell from 7.9 to 3.0 per 100,000 women between 1965 and 1988, a drop attributed largely to the test although it was never trialled at random. Australia and England have since moved to testing for the HPV virus first.