A Pap smear (also known as the Pap test) is a medical procedure in which a sample of cells from a woman's cervix (the end of the uterus that extends into the vagina) is collected and spread (smeared) on a microscope slide. The cells are examined under a microscope in order to look for pre-malignant (before-cancer) or malignant (cancer) changes.
A Pap smear is a simple, quick, and relatively painless screening test. Its specificity - which means its ability to avoid classifying a normal smear as abnormal (a "false positive" result) - while very good, is not perfect. The sensitivity of a Pap smear - which means its ability to detect every single abnormality -- while good, is also not perfect, and some "false negative" results (in which abnormalities are present but not detected by the test) will occur. Thus, a few women develop cervical cancer despite having regular Pap screening.
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