Sever Dysplasia And Carcinoma-in Situ

[JLTJR]

I can't tell you how grateful I am to find this board!

I am 40 years old. A month ago I had my first pap smear in approximately 8 years. The results came back with severe dysplasia and carcinoma-in-situ. Sounded very scary to me!

I had a colposcopy last week but my ob/gyn said because of the pap results she wanted to go ahead and schedule a leep even though the biopsy would probably not be in yet. I am having that in 2 days. Does the doctor get a pretty good idea just from viewing the area with the colposcopy, even without the biospy results? I asked my gyn that question and all she said was, "it does look severe". Severe dyplasia? or severe what?

It looks to me, from the research I have done, that the best results I can hope for at this point is that it is only carcinoma-in-situ, but it seems like most people get worse result once the biospy report comes in.

Does anyone know if the pap smear would have shown invasive, if in fact it was? My gyn keeps trying to reassure me....but does she really know anything at this point?

Thanks in advance for any responses. My thoughts and prayers are with all of you going through this.

[iffer]

Hi,

This whole dysplasia thing is ridiculous isn't it? This whole thing is so scarey it can take over your daily thoughts. However, please try not to let this happen. I am a nurse that had an abnormal pap, then high grade lesion on byopsy. Just had the leep procedure two days ago and am awaiting to make sure they got everything. Knowing that cervical cancer is most likely not a killer, I should have not been so scared, but I was as well.
When you get your pap results the byopsy results do tend to come back differently, however, sometimes they come back slightly worse and there are many times, the byopsy comes back the cells are not as bad ie: mod dysplasia etc.
Lets say you had the carcinoma insitu, if you read on the internet about this, it is still not considered cancer. There is a classification of byopsy results, low grade mod grade, high grade dysplasia, carcinoma insitu, then cancer. Carcinoma insitu is not classified as cancer on the new classification. It definitly needs to be removed from the cervix because it can turn into cancer.
Even the first few stages of cervical cancer are totally curable like in the 90 some percent range.

The leep procedure was not that big of a deal.
read my new post

take care
iffer

[JLTJR]

Thanks for your response. For some reason, I am not all that worried about the LEEP, more anxious to get this over with as soon as possible.

Is it just assumed that I have HPV? Neither doctor has mentioned to me that I have that. I was tested for other STD's and everything was clear. I have been in what I thought was a monogamous relationship for 8 years, and I still believe that to be the case. But, if I do have this, shouldn't my husband and I take precautions when having intercourse? If we ever get to have it again, (ha, ha) Since I had the colposcopy just last week and am having the LEEP this Friday, it will be a while before we have to worry about that.

I have had no symptoms whatsoever, certainly no break through bleeding or bleeding after intercourse. Is this possibly a good sign that this has been detected early?

[iffer]

Usually abnormal bleeding is more of a symptom of advanced cancer, but abnormal bleeding can mean a lot of other things as well.
You should not assume you have HPV until told you do so. You do though, need to ask you dr to do typing for HPV off of your byopsy or pap smear, they can go back even a few weeks after your pap to check this. MOST WELL SEASONED DR's, when they see cervical dysplasia will test to see if HPV was most likely involved. The thing is, you do not need to have actual intercourse to get HPV, ie(could get from fingers etc), and HPV is a virus that can remain dormant for many years, so you could have gotten it prior to your husband if you had had any other partners, but your virus just became active thus causing bad cells. What causes the virus to become active? stress, smoking any blow to your immune system. etc.
Some people do have these issues such as yours however, and do not have HPV, but usually the bad cells that can cause cancer are from having HPV.
If you have it of course, talk to your dr about safe sex practices. But I will tell you that my husband and I never use safe sex practices and he has never had a prob. HPV usually is the virus that either causes genital warts and then the other strain can cause dysplasia of the cervix instead of warts.
I hope this helps. If you have HPV, 80% of the population has been exposed to hpv, many people never develop problems from this however, some people run into some issues. Which can come and go as the virus goes in and out of a dormant state.

I hope this has helped, you do need to ask your dr. I bet you have a high poss that this is hpv, however, you may be one of those people who just has the dysplasia without hpv as the cause.
iffer

[LoLi]

Had the same thing. I got a laser cone biopsy done last week. Piece of cake. The worst part was the anesthesia (I get nausea and vomiting). My doctor called a week later to tell me my pathology report came back excellent. Anyway, through this whole process whenever I had a nagging feeling about something she said, I called her and asked her directly. Don't make yourself crazy wondering what she meant by severe...call up and ask. I read in a book about hpv and abnormal paps that severe dysplasia/carcinoma in situ (usually lumped together to bring attention to the severity) look different than invasive cancer during colposcopy. That in only 1 in 1000 women was invasive cancer found after a diagnosis of severe dysplasia/cis on colposcopy if the doctor was an adequate colposcopist. Best of luck to you! And update us when you can.