About two-thirds of older women fail to quali- fy for discontinuation of cervical cancer screen- ing, according to a study published in Gynecologic Oncology. Researchers assessed eligibility for cer- vical cancer screening discontinuation based on current guidelines among nearly 600,000 women aged 64 captured in a national claims database with employer-sponsored insurance in 2016 and 2018 and about 1,500 women aged 64-66 re- ceiving primary care at a safety net health center in 2019. They found that 22.2% of women in the national claims database were eligible to exit due to hysterectomy (1.6%) or negative screen- ing (20.6%), which includes two human papil- lomavirus (HPV) screening tests or HPV plus Pap co-tests or three Pap tests within the previous 10 years without evidence of an abnormal result. More women from the safety net health center were eligible for discontinuation, with 34.2% eli- gible overall, including 9.3% due to hysterectomy and 24.9% due to negative screening. However, in both datasets, a majority of women did not have sufficient data available to fulfill exit criteria: 64.7% in the national database and 56.7% in the safety net hospital system. Only 41.5% of women with 10 years of insurance claims data qualified to discontinue screening. “Additional steps to ensure eligibility prior to screening exit may be necessary to decrease preventable cervical cancers among women aged less than 65,” the authors wrote.
