What Causes Blood In Urine In A Breast Cancer Survivor?

Posted on Mon, 15 Aug 2016

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Mon, 15 Aug 2016 Answered on

Thu, 1 Sep 2016 Last reviewed on

Question : I am currently a 54 woman who is being evaluated by urologist and gynecologist. I am a breast cancer survivor of 5 years, stage 3. My symptoms I am being evaluated for are blood in urine as well as blood vaginally, dispite having a partial hysterectomy. I have no uterus, but still have ovaries and cervix. The cystoscopy found lesions, but no cancer in the bladder. The cystoscopy also found cervix to be abnormal in appearance. The CT scan found abnormal tissue behind the cervix, and the pelvic exam by the gynecologist found abnormal as well. I'm scheduled for a procedure for biopsies of bladder and cervix. My question is that the pap came back negative. How often is cancer diagnosed with a negative pap?

Answered by Dr. Soumya (2 hours later)

Brief Answer:
pap smear is Screening test

Detailed Answer:
Hi,

I understand your concerns about pap smear.

Pap smear is a screening test and looks only at cells from superficial epithelium. There is 20 percent chance of it not detecting cancerous changes.

In your case the suspected lesion is behind the cervix which is difficult to identify by pap smear as pap smear takes cells from superficial area of front of cervix.

Let me know if you need anymore help.

Regards

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar