Cervical Cancer: Symptoms and Treatments

Lybrate - Dr.Nupur Gupta talks about Cervical Cancer.

Hello I am Dr. Nupur Gupta consultant gynecologist and obstetrician practicing in Gurgaon. Today I am going to talk about cervical cancer and its prevention. We all know it is one of the very common cancers amongst females all over the world especially in developing countries, it is more common in developed countries because of poor maternal health. The patients don’t want to go to the gynecologist. There are no guidelines which they know about and they can go for screening for cancer. There are various symptoms that women should know that how cervical cancer can be diagnosed and when is the right time for them to report to their gynecologist. Especially with women, it can happen at any age and especially women who are sexually active with multiple sexual partners who have been infected with human papillomavirus at some point during their life and who have irregular vaginal bleeding and who have bleeding after intercourse which is called Postcoital bleeding and who have intermenstrual bleeding or sometimes they have foul smelling and vaginal discharge. These are all the symptoms which should prompt any female in reproductive age or during menopause, postmenopause to come to a gynecologist and go for screening.

There are various guidelines which are developed in UK, in US and over world and especially in India for females. When should Pap smear be done in any female, is every three years after three samples are negative in three consecutive years. After the age of 60 to 65 years we do it every five years and so on. So women don’t need to fear about cervical cancer anymore because now-a-days research has led to development of a new vaccine, a new innovation in health care which is vaccine against human papillomavirus which leads to this kind of cancer in females. It can be given to adolescent girls from nine years of age onwards and now-a-days it is also part of Indian Academy of Pediatrics immunization in India.

In some countries even boys are given this vaccine because this virus is known to be transmitted from male to female. Upto 26 years of age, any women is eligible to take the vaccine and also women above 26 but who are not sexually active and never had intercourse till date. But taking the immunization doesn’t mean that Pap smear need not be done, still Pap smear screening is mandatory to detect cervical cancer as far as possible. So now we know that cervical cancer is preventable and there is a vaccine which is available, there is Pap smear that can be done in women who are sexually active.

So if you want to know more about this cancer and prevent yourself being affected by this kind of cancer and go for screening you can consult me on lybrate.com which has all modes of consultation audio, video or a text mode of consultation.