A medical professional can look at the swab under a microscope and determine if these cells have signs of cervical cancer. An abnormal Pap smear does not necessarily mean you have cancer.

The Papanicolaou (Pap) smear is commonly used to screen for cervical cancer and since its introduction in organized screening programmes in resource-rich countries it has been successful in ...

“It's called a Pap smear, because you would literally take your spatula, scrape it across the cervix, and then smear that tissue or cell onto a microscope slide," Sarah Tout, MD, assistant ...

If the Pap smear is abnormal, a colposcopy may be performed. A colposcopy is an office procedure that uses a special microscope (colposcope) to examine the tissue lining the cervix and walls of the ...

In a smear preparation, cells from a culture are spread in a thin film over a small area of a microscope slide, dried, and then fixed to the slide by heating or other chemical fixatives. A good smear ...

A little brush is used to gather cells from the cervix for a Pap smear. After that, these cells are submerged in a certain liquid to be examined under a microscope. In addition to malignancy ...

The tissue that is removed is then examined under a microscope to look for cancerous cells. The procedure may be recommended after an abnormal pap smear, or to treat dysplasia, abnormal changes in the ...