Know More About Cervical Cancer

Hi friends. My name is Dr. Amrapali Dixit and I am practicing gynaecologist in the area of Manisar, Gurgaon. Today we will be talking about a cancer that is cervical cancer. Cervical cancer is the cancer of mouth of cervices which we scientifically name as cervices. Why are we talking about this cancer? For two very important reasons. 1, it is the most common cancer in Indian females and 2nd because it is easily preventable by a very very simple test. So from the condition of a pre-cancer stage to a cancer stage in cases of cervical cancer is a long one. It might take even 10 or 15, 20 years from a pre-cancerous stage to actual cancer to develop and this is the time that we can intervene and relive you of the symptoms and any chances of having cancer. What causes this cervical cancer? In almost 99% of cases the association has been seen with a virus which is known as HPV or the human papillomavirus and the infection with this HPV is so common that by midlife, by the age of 40-45 years almost 80% of us females are infected by this virus. But that does not mean all of us are going to have cervical cancer. 80% of this infection gets resolved on its own within 2years of infection. It’s only a very small percentage of women in which this HPV persists. In this, we call it as a persistent HPV infection. And these are the women who are at a little higher risk of contriving this cervical cancer and there are two particular strains of HPV virus, which are known to be high risk more associated with the cervical cancer these are the strains, HPV 16 and HPV 18. So once the persistent infection is there in the body. It might cause certain changes in the cells of your cervics altimately leading to cervical cancer. The symptoms of precancerous stage and early cancerous are very very nonspecific. It might present as irregular bleeding, bleeding after intercourse bleeding in cases of post pinopausl females who already had sensation of there menses, pain during intercourse, thick, white, yellow or even fouth smelling discharge or nonspecific pelvic pain. How do we diagnose the cancer? Well, by the time actual symptoms start troubling you the cancer are usually in advance stage. So the problem here is that we need to diagnose it in early cancerous or pre-cancerous stages and for this we have a very very simple test called the pap smear test. What is the Pap smear test? It’s a very simple test which can be done by the gynecologist in your routine visit to a gynecologist. We just take a small sample of your discharge which is coming out from the cervices and then we subject it to microscopic studies, and that tell us whether your cell are having any changes which are suggestive of pre-cancerous or early cancerous stage. Along with that we can also test the same discharge for the presence of HPV infection and based on that your treatment can be done. Just the infection can be treated by antibiotics. If you have any early cancerous or pre-cancerous changes there are other treatments like, the cervices can be excised or we can have curio and various methods are available and also, these days we do have vaccines coming against HPV. So if we can prevent our girls from HPV infection right in the adolcence, well we are protecting them potentially, life threatening disease which is a cancer. So girls and ladies and even the once who have had menopause always be attentive to how and what your body is trying to tell you. Look out for these symptoms and if you have any doubt do visit your gynecologist for a routine Pap smears test. And to know more about this disease and how we can fight with it, you can contact me through Lybrate or visit my clinic which is at sector 1 Manisar by the name of Yashloog medical centre.