Chad Clark's Open Journal : 2009-04-07

1) A DNA test for HPV that causes cervical cancer.

The New York Times article reads:

  A new DNA test for the virus that causes cervical cancer does so much
  better than current methods that some gynecologists hope it will eventually
  replace the Pap smear ...  Their optimism is based on an eight-year study
  of 130,000 women in India
  
  ...
  
  The study is “another nail in the coffin” for Pap smears, which will “soon
  be of mainly historical interest,” said Dr. Paul D. Blumenthal, a professor
  of gynecology at Stanford medical school who has tested screening
  techniques in Africa and Asia and was not involved in the study.
  
  ...
  
  Cervical cancer was a leading cause of death for American women in the
  1950s; it now kills fewer than 4,000 a year.
  
  ...
  
  In the West, women get smears named for their inventor, Dr. Georgios
  Papanikolaou. Cells are scraped from the cervix and sent to a laboratory,
  where they are stained and inspected under a microscope by a pathologist
  looking for abnormalities. Results may take several days.
  
  The DNA screen also needs a cervical scraping, but it is mixed with
  re-agents and read by a machine.