Silent but dead­ly. These are words of­ten used to de­scribe Cer­vi­cal Can­cer; a slow-grow­ing dis­ease that rarely caus­es symp­toms in its ear­ly stages. Ac­cord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol (CDC), each year more than 12,000 women in the Unit­ed States are di­ag­nosed with cer­vi­cal can­cer, and for some it will be too late to re­ceive ef­fec­tive treat­ment. In Trinidad and To­ba­go, cer­vi­cal can­cer is un­for­tu­nate­ly the sec­ond lead­ing cause of death among women.

Is this pre­ventable?

Jan­u­ary marks the time to in­tro­spect and make sound res­o­lu­tions, a new year, a health­i­er you. Jan­u­ary is al­so des­ig­nat­ed as Cer­vi­cal Can­cer Aware­ness Month, a per­ti­nent time to dis­cuss strate­gies to pre­vent can­cer, es­pe­cial­ly this one. CDC shares “Up to 93% of cer­vi­cal can­cers are pre­ventable.”

World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion pledges

“Elim­i­nat­ing any can­cer would have once seemed an im­pos­si­ble dream, but we now have the cost-ef­fec­tive, ev­i­dence-based tools to make that dream a re­al­i­ty,” said WHO Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al Dr Tedros Ad­hanom Ghe­breye­sus. “With a com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to pre­vent, screen and treat, cer­vi­cal can­cer can be elim­i­nat­ed as a pub­lic health prob­lem with­in a gen­er­a­tion,” pledged the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion.

In the past 30 years, WHO states, “The num­ber of cas­es of cer­vi­cal can­cer and the num­ber of deaths from cer­vi­cal can­cer have de­creased sig­nif­i­cant­ly. This de­cline large­ly is the re­sult of many women be­ing screened reg­u­lar­ly by Pap Smears, which can find cer­vi­cal pre­can­cer be­fore it turns in­to can­cer and the Hu­man Pa­pil­lo­ma Virus (HPV) vac­ci­na­tion.”

Let’s Dis­cuss Cer­vi­cal Can­cer

Cer­vi­cal can­cer be­gins when healthy cells in the cervix de­vel­op changes (mu­ta­tions) in their DNA. A cell's DNA con­tains the in­struc­tions that tell a cell what to do.

Healthy cells grow and mul­ti­ply at a set rate, even­tu­al­ly dy­ing at a set time. The mu­ta­tions tell the cells to grow and mul­ti­ply out of con­trol, and they don't die. The ac­cu­mu­lat­ing ab­nor­mal cells form a mass (tu­mour). Can­cer cells in­vade near­by tis­sues and can break off from a tu­mour to spread (metas­ta­size) else­where in the body.

Risk fac­tors for cer­vi­cal can­cer

- Many sex­u­al part­ners - The greater your num­ber of sex­u­al part­ners, and the greater your part­ner's num­ber of sex­u­al part­ners, the greater your chance of ac­quir­ing HPV.

Ear­ly sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty - Hav­ing sex at an ear­ly age in­creas­es your risk of HPV.

Oth­er sex­u­al­ly trans­mit­ted in­fec­tions (STIs) – Hav­ing oth­er STIs, such as chlamy­dia, gon­or­rhoea, syphilis and HIV/AIDS, in­creas­es your risk of HPV.

A weak­ened im­mune sys­tem – You may be more like­ly to de­vel­op cer­vi­cal can­cer if your im­mune sys­tem is weak­ened by an­oth­er health con­di­tion and you have HPV.

Smok­ing – Smok­ing is as­so­ci­at­ed with squa­mous cell cer­vi­cal can­cer.

Pre­ven­tion: Re­duc­ing your Risk

- Ask your doc­tor about the HPV vac­cine.

- Have rou­tine Pap tests.

- Prac­tice safe sex.

- Don't smoke.

“The huge bur­den of mor­tal­i­ty re­lat­ed to cer­vi­cal can­cer is a con­se­quence of decades of ne­glect by the glob­al health com­mu­ni­ty. How­ev­er, the script can be rewrit­ten,” says WHO As­sis­tant Di­rec­tor-Gen­er­al Dr Princess Nothem­ba Simelela. “The fight against cer­vi­cal can­cer is al­so a fight for women’s rights: the un­nec­es­sary suf­fer­ing caused by this pre­ventable dis­ease re­flects the in­jus­tices that unique­ly af­fect women’s health around the world,” says Dr Princess Nothem­ba Simelela. “To­geth­er, we can make his­to­ry to en­sure a cer­vi­cal can­cer-free fu­ture.”

For more in­for­ma­tion:

https://www.cdc.gov/vi­tal­signs/cer­vi­cal-can­cer/in­dex.html

https://www.who.int/news/item/17-11-2020-a-cer­vi­cal-can­cer-free-fu­ture-first-ever-glob­al-com­mit­ment-to-elim­i­nate-a-can­cer