What is a "colposcopy"?

What is a "colposcopy"?

Michael Tahery (Obstetrician & Gynecologist) gives expert video advice on: What is my doctor looking for during a breast exam?; Can I do my own breast exam?; How common are abnormal pap smear results? and more...

Colposcopy is when we find that person has an abnormal pap smear and we want to find out why and what's going on in the cervical tissue. Pap smear is the sampling of the cells, But a colposcopy give us a direct visualization of the cervix. So what we do is with a special microscope we look at the cervix. We apply certain liquids to the cervix that then bring out the abnormal cells. And, then we get biopsies or actually tissues, a sample of the tissues, a thick sample of the tissue so then we can send from the abnormal area to the pathologist so they can look at it on their microscope again and tell us how bad or how much of a problem we're facing.