They say that adding the test for the human papillomavirus (HPV) to the cervical smear test means that they can predict more accurately which women are likely to have cancerous or pre-cancerous cells.

Around one in four American women are likely to receive an abnormal smear test result, but as many as 80% will not have cancer.

Usually they have to wait six months and have another smear to confirm if the abnormalities mean they are at risk of developing cancer.

But scientists say that the HPV test is more accurate than the second smear.

And, because it can be done on the same sample as is used for the first smear, women do not have to face the anxiety of a long wait.

Revolution

The Digene test for HPV was recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, but researchers say it will take a while before it is used widely by doctors.

According to research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the test caught more than 89% of seriously precancerous lesions, compared with a 76.2% success rate for the second smear test.

Michele Manos of Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California, tested 995 women with the HPV test.

She said: "We found that if a woman with an ASCUS [abnormal] Pap had a negative HPV results, we could be 99% certain that she did not have cancer."

"Perhaps we have here the beginning of a second revolution in the prevention of cervical cancer."

Most varieties of HPV, which is transmitted through sexual intercourse and is becoming increasingly common among young women in the UK, have been linked to cervical cancer.