How long before a doctor notifies you if you have an abnormal pap smear?

I had a pap smear and pelvic exam done a week and a half ago. I always get very nervous when I expect results from the doctor. I was wondering if anyone has ever had an abnormal pap and did the doctor call you and how long did it take before he called you. My husband says no news is good news. I am extremely nervous and anxious about this, so please only serious answers. Thanks for any information.|||It depends my doctor has to send out my samples and it can take up to a month.





I had an abnormal pap and the results took 6 weeks to get. Try not to stress.|||Mine took 4 days.|||If I'm concerned about my results, I call the doctor's office. I give them at least one week.|||I have had a few abnormal paps and the doctor told me expect results within a week or two. They should call you but sometimes they have hectic sched. and forget. If you are worried, call the clinic where you had it done and ask if the results are in. Good luck!!|||It took about 7 days, and your husband is right, no news is good news|||My clinic told me they take a month and no news is good news.|||It really does depend on whether or not the doctor sent off your smear on the same day and whether the cytology dept that looks at your smears has a backlog of work.


I work in a cytology dept in the UK and sometimes it would be 2 weeks before we even received someone's pap smear because the doc was waiting to send off a whole batch of them together.


Once it gets to the lab it has to be booked in, any back history is looked up and printed out, then it is processed and stained. Once the slides are dry, they have to be matched with the forms and it is then screened by two different people, then the report has to be entered onto the comp, then the results get sent out. If an abnormality is found then it has to be looked at by a 3rd and possibly 4th person before it is entered on the comp and results can be sent out.


Each part of the process takes time. Without a backlog, all this can take around two weeks (abnormal or not) because there are hundreds of paps sent in each day and they have to be processed in date order, unless the doc has marked it urgent.


I don't know how the lab works in your area but this should give you some idea of what happens and why you are waiting for what feels like ages (because you're anxious) for one simple test result.


If you haven't heard by two weeks, give the doc a call and ask what's happening.