CERVICAL
CANCER
Information for Program Managers and
Coalition Members
Quick
link to the Resources List for
Program Managers and Coalition
Members
Cervical
cancer kills more than 288,000
women each year worldwide and disproportionately
affects the poorest, most vulnerable
women. At least 80 percent of cervical
cancer deaths occur in developing
countries, with most occurring in
the poorest regions - South Asia,
sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of
Latin America.
Health care providers in developing
countries regularly see women with
advanced, incurable cervical cancer.
At this late stage, there is little
they can do to save women's lives.
Even drugs designed to ease cancer
pain often are unavailable.
Yet cervical cancer
can be readily prevented, even in women
at high risk for the disease, through
screening and treatment using relatively
simple technologies. When precancerous
changes in cervical tissue are found
and the abnormal tissue successfully
treated, a woman will not develop cancer.
A
Pap test (also called a Pap smear)
is a procedure to collect cells from
the surface of the cervix and vagina.
A piece of cotton, a brush, or a small
wooden stick is used to gently scrape
cells from the cervix and vagina. The
cells are viewed under a microscope
to find out if they are abnormal. This
procedure is also called a Pap smear.
A new method of collecting and viewing
cells has been developed, in which
the cells are placed into a liquid
before being placed on a slide. It
is not known if the new method will
work better than the standard method
to reduce the number of deaths from
cervical cancer. Please visit the NCI
site to learn more about pap smears click
here
The screening tests promoted by International
Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC)
and the Alliance for Cervical Cancer
Prevention (ACCP) are known as VIA
and VILI. “VIA” stands for visual
inspection with acetic acid (acetic
acid is vinegar), and “VILI” for visual
inspection Lugol's iodine.
Both tests be done by a trained health
professional and have been designed
with low-resource countries in mind.
Extensive training materials about
both screening methods can be found
in the practitioner’s
link on this web site.
A vaccine against cervical cancer is
now available. This vaccine can be
complemented with improved cervical
screening to achieve a substantial
reduction in cervical cancer, a disease
that shatters families and destroys
the lives of women in their prime.
The costs of cervical cancer to communities
and to individual women and their families
are great, but this situation can be
improved. To realize the full potential
of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine
requires universal coverage of adolescent
girls before the possibility of HPV
contact. Although it will be challenging
to reach these girls—many of whom do
not routinely see health care providers—once
effective systems are in place, they
can be used to provide many additional
health interventions necessary for
older children and young adolescents.
The fight against
cervical cancer, a disease that is
preventable, can be regarded as both
a health issue and a human rights and
ethical issue. Current tools can tackle
this problem and help to give more
women, their families, and their communities
a future without cervical cancer.(Source:
PATH, About
Cervical Cancer)
Acknowledgment:
This text is from the IARC and rho.org web
site. The International Agency for
Research on Cancer (IARC) is part of
the World
Health Organization, Reproductive
Health Outlook (RHO) is part of PATH.
What do we know
about diet and cervical cancer?
The panel
of the WCRF/AIRC concludes: (Chapter
7.13, pages 301-3, to download the
3 page pdf chapter click
here)
"There is limited evidence suggesting
that carrots protect against cervical
cancer. The evidence is too limited
to conclude that any aspect of food,
nutrition, and physical activity directly
modifies the risk of this cancer."
Second
Expert Report: Food, Nutrition,
Physical Activity, and the Prevention
of Cancer: a Global Perspective. World
Cancer Research Fund / American
Institute for Cancer Research (WCRF/AICR),
Washington DC: AICR, 2007. 537
Pages. Note: PDF file of the complete
report is 12 MB in size. More about
this report can be found on the
“diet” link [or some other name
later] of this website. To download
the entire report (pdf 12MB) please
click here.
To download a summary of the report
(16 pages, pdf 1.2MB) please
click here
To download the
report’s summary in other languages
than English (WCRF website), please
click here
Please make sure you check the MedlinePlus
online for cervical cancer with an
extensive, constantly updated resource
list. MedlinePlus
will direct you to information to help
answer health questions. MedlinePlus
brings together authoritative information
from NLM, the National Institutes of
Health (NIH), and other government
agencies and health-related organizations.
MedlinePlus also has extensive information
about drugs, an illustrated medical
encyclopedia, interactive patient tutorials,
and latest health news. Please
click here
The resources listed
here are organized by relevance. They
are published by well-known organizations
working on cervical cancer prevention
and HPV vaccine access. All PDF files
listed can be downloaded from the pacificcancer.org
website, without having to visit any
other site.
Note: There are
many exciting breakthroughs in developing
more effective prevention strategies
for cervical cancer, both for early
detection and HPV vaccine. To make
sure you get access to the most up-to-date
information, we recommend you check
the web sites of rho.org, IARC and ACCP.
If you have limited Internet access
we recommend you start with rho's
archive, organized by subject.
Acknowledgment:
This text is adapted from the CDC
website.
