It would be better if PAP smear test is done together with digene HPV DNA test.

PAP smear have good specificity while its sensitivity is poor. The pathologist needs to look at the slides and there might be chance for them to miss certain cells. Another possibility is that the sample collection method might be wrong.

It has been proven that cervical cancer is caused by Human Papilloma virus (HPV). However, not all the HPV will cause cervical cancer. This has been well-studied and HPV DNA test is so far the only FDA-approval test in the market to use together with PAP for efficient screening of cervical samples.