Skip to main content

Health and medicine/Clinical medicine/Medical diagnosis/Medical tests/Genetic testing

Regulations have not kept pace with the unintended uses of personal genetic data.

Analyzing DNA from Pap smears could help detect endometrial and ovarian cancer, according to a new study appearing in the 9 January issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine.

The finding could be a potentially life-saving screening tool for women. The routine Pap smear, which allows doctors to detect abnormal cells in a woman’s cervix, was recently updated to screen for human papillomavirus or HPV using DNA testing.