BOCA RATON, FL-- It's important for Boca Raton mother Audrey Lyon to make sure her 20-year-old daughter, Ashley has a pap smear every year. It's an emotional issue for this family. Audrey was diagnosed with cervical cancer when she was Ashley's age.
"If I had waited an entire other year, then the children that I already had would be growing up without a mother," Lyon said.
After generations of recommending women have an annual pap smear beginning as young as their teenage years- the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has suddenly changed its guidelines.
As of today, the recommendation to women is to wait until the age of 21 to have their first pap smear. And women over 30 with three consecutive normal exams are now being told a pap smear every three years is enough.
"I think it's dangerous," Ashely Lyon said, "I have friends that had cervical cancer at a young age."
ObGyn Karrie Bataskov has mixed emotions about the changes. She acknowledges the board's recommendations are evidence-based and she says it has been proven cervical cancer is slow growing.
But she says its a fine line and she believes it should be up to the doctor and patient to make that decision together.
"My concern is that insurance companies won't cover it," Bataskov said, "And then those patients won't have access."
Earlier this week, a government panel recommended mammograms be given after the age of 50 instead of 40. Leaving many doctors and patients in an uproar, wondering what the true intentions behind the changes are.
"You don't know what's behind it," Lyon said. "You just can't help but think it's political issue."
