The next time you book yourself in for a cervical screen, spare a thought for the woman who endured a similar procedure every day for 21 years.
abc.net.au/news/andromache-mary-papanicolaou-pap-smear-test-cervical-cancer/102484690The next time you book yourself in for a cervical screen, spare a thought for the woman who endured a vaginal smear every day for more than 20 years.
So how did the daughter of a colonel in the Greek army find herself the central figure in what would become one of the most successful cancer screening programs worldwide — and what is her legacy?Mary was born in 1890 into the Mavroyeni family — a military family from way back. Her great-grandmother fought to liberate Greece from the Ottoman Empire some 70 years before.
Neither spoke fluent English. Mary was the first to get a job, sewing buttons on clothes for a department store, while George sold rugs and did odd jobs, like playing violin at restaurants and cafes. It's said George worked seven days a week, so it was up to Mary to take care of the house, garden and cooking.
By this time, samples were collected by inserting a thin glass tube, which looked a bit like a skinny turkey baster, that sucked out a little fluid. "That was the massive breakthrough — showing that you could actually see these pre-cancerous changes as well in these cells." Convincing sceptics that the Papanicolaou test was valuable and effective would take another decade after that.The Pap test as many people know it today it is a little different to what Mary did each day.The modern-day method involves inserting a speculum to hold the walls of the vagina open and collecting cells from what's called the transformation zone of the cervix, says Marion Saville, executive director at the Australian Centre for the Prevention of Cervical Cancer.
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