LSIL on a Pap smear may indicate HPV and doctors will likely ask for a follow-up Pap smear in six months. If LSIL is still present, a colonoscopy may be advised. HSIL is more serious and may indicate precancerous cells, but early diagnosis is highly treatable. Don’t panic, as LSIL may clear up on its own or be a false result. HPV tests may be recommended.
If your Pap smear shows LSIL, which stands for low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion, most doctors won’t do anything right away. You will likely be asked to return in six months for another pap smear to see if the lesions are still present. In many cases, the lesions go away over time and there are no further problems. If you come back for your second Pap smear and the result is still there, you will likely be advised to have a colonoscopy. A colonoscopy is a procedure performed in a doctor’s office and is typically the first step in diagnosing cervical cancer.
When LSIL shows up on your Pap smear results, it’s a sign that you may have HPV (human papillomavirus). HPV is an infection within the body that causes genital warts and is typically transmitted sexually. An LSIL is often the result of HPV, but can occasionally be present for other reasons. Things that cause LSIL that aren’t related to HPV include inflammation of the cervical cells and atrophic vaginitis. The inflammation of the cervical cells usually goes away on its own, and atrophic vaginitis occurs almost exclusively in menopausal women who have thinning of the cervical tissue.
In addition to LSIL, some pap smears may show HSIL (high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions). These lesions are typically taken much more seriously than LSIL and a colonoscopy is normally performed as soon as HSIL is discovered. HSILs are considered precancerous cells, and a person with these lesions could be in the early stages of cervical cancer. Just as HPV typically causes low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions, it is also typically responsible for the presence of high-grade lesions. While the idea of HSIL is scary to many women, it’s actually highly treatable and doesn’t always progress to cervical cancer if it’s diagnosed early enough.
The most important thing you can do if your Pap smear comes back showing signs of a low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion is not to panic. There may be no need to worry, and you won’t know for sure until your second Pap smear if anything needs to be fixed. When you come back for another pap smear in six months or more, the lesions may have cleared up on their own. There is also the possibility that the Pap smear gave false results, because errors are possible with any type of medical test. If your Pap smear showed signs of LSIL and you were previously unaware that you might have HPV, you may want to have some HPV tests to determine if that was the cause of your intraepithelial lesions.
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