Assessing the role of education in women's knowledge and acceptance of adjunct high-risk human Papillomavirus testing for cervical cancer screening.

OBJECTIVE: To assess women's knowledge, concerns, and willingness for adjunct high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) testing before and after an educational intervention. MATERIALS AND METHODS: At the time of their annual gynecologic examination, women aged 30 years and older received an educational intervention about HR-HPV. Subjects completed preintervention and postintervention questionnaires. Demographic characteristics were summarized using frequency measures. Comparisons between the pre-education and posteducation questionnaires were performed using Fisher exact test. RESULTS: Fifty women completed the study. After the educational intervention, 77% of women were willing to be tested for HR-HPV. Sixty-seven percent of women would be likely to return for their annual gynecologic examination even if a Pap smear was not required for 3 years. Education statistically reduced concern regarding a positive HR-HPV result with 60% pre-education and 27% posteducation very concerned (p =.002). When surveyed about what their concerns would be if tested positive for HR-HPV, women associate future cervical cancer diagnosis (38% pre-education vs 48% posteducation, p =.903) but not partner infidelity (0%) with testing positive for HR-HPV. Knowledge concerning HPV, cervical cancer, and cervical cancer screening was statistically improved after the educational intervention in all but 2 questions. CONCLUSION: Women 30 years and older are willing to have adjunct HR-HPV testing, with education reducing their degree of concern about testing positive. Women who test positive would be most concerned about getting cervical cancer. Women would be willing to return for yearly gynecologic examinations, even if a Pap smear was not needed for 3 years. Education improves women's knowledge of HPV, cervical cancer, and cervical cancer screening, but did not allay the concern for getting cervical cancer.

Motility proteins and the origin of the nucleus.

Hypotheses on the origin of eukaryotic cells must account for the origin of the microtubular cytoskeletal structures (including the mitotic spindle, undulipodium/cilium (so-called flagellum) and other structures underlain by the 9(2)+2 microtubular axoneme) in addition to the membrane-bounded nucleus. Whereas bacteria with membrane-bounded nucleoids have been described, no precedent for mitotic, cytoskeletal, or axonemal microtubular structures are known in prokaryotes. Molecular phylogenetic analyses indicate that the cells of the earliest-branching lineages of eukaryotes contain the karyomastigont cytoskeletal system. These protist cells divide via an extranuclear spindle and a persistent nuclear membrane. We suggest that this association between the centriole/kinetosome axoneme (undulipodium) and the nucleus existed from the earliest stage of eukaryotic cell evolution. We interpret the karyomastigont to be a legacy of the symbiosis between thermoacidophilic archaebacteria and motile eubacteria from which the first eukaryote evolved. Mutually inconsistent hypotheses for the origin of the nucleus are reviewed and sequenced proteins of cell motility are discussed because of their potential value in resolving this problem. A correlation of fossil evidence with modern cell and microbiological studies leads us to the karyomastigont theory of the origin of the nucleus.