What are the cancer-fighting benefits of regular gynecological exams?

The uterus is the site of common cancers (cervical and myometrial), and regular checks are recommended to all women who are or have been sexually active. These may be annual or every three years.

A manual gynecological examination will feel for hard or unusual tissue or incipient tumors in the uterus, and a cervical smear (called a Pap smear) will be taken to look for any abnormal cell development on the cervix. Being told that abnormal cells have been found can be frightening, but they do not mean you have cancer. They will simply indicate that further checks should be made (which may involve nothing more than smears at more frequent intervals), and it is quite usual for subsequent tests to be negative. If precancerous cells are confirmed, the disease will have been caught at a very early stage if you have been regularly checked in the past.