The Papanicolaou smear: its impact on the promotion of women's health.

Since the introduction of the Papanicolaou (Pap) smear in 1942, deaths from cervical cancer have decreased. The Healthy People 2000 objectives for women include a further decrease in the cervical cancer death rate and an increase in the number of women consistently receiving Pap smears. An overview of the life of Dr. Papanicolaou, the risk factors that have been established to determine Pap smear intervals, and improvements in managing results are presented. The false-negative Pap smear rate, reported at between 5% and 30%, may be a barrier to detection. To correct this, new regulations and new technology have been introduced. However, thousands of women have never received a Pap smear or receive it sporadically. To reduce deaths from cervical cancer, lowering the false-negative rate may not be as important as having regular Pap smears.