Women Treated For Cervical Cancer Still at Risk
Reported November 13, 2007
A recent study conducted by Swedish researchers shows that women who have been treated for early signs of cervical cancer have a high risk of developing the disease years later. The study is published in the British Medical Journal.
Researchers studied data from 133,000 women who had been diagnosed with the most severe pre-cancerous lesions, namely carcinoma-in-situ, between 1958 and 2002. They found that women who had been treated for this pre-cancerous lesion were twice as likely to develop cervical cancer as normal female population and seven times more likely to develop vaginal cancer.
Researchers recommend that in such cases women should do regular screening for at least 25 years after the treatment. The studys authors discovered that the risk became higher if women were older at the time of diagnosis and even higher after the age of 50.
UK guidelines for women who have been treated for carcinoma-in-situ recommend annual screening for 10 years. The National Health Service (NHS) offers cervical screening for UK women between the ages of 25 and 49, once in three years, and once every five years until 64.
The study also shows that, the more tissue is left after the treatment, the higher the risk is. After 1991, treatments were trying to let more tissue intact in order to preserve womens fertility.
Dr Anne Szarewski, honorary senior lecturer at the Cancer Research UK Centre for Epidemiology, Mathematics and Statistics in London, said that it should be remembered that the majority of women who are found to have high grade cervical abnormalities are in their 30s and early 40s, a time when they may have not completed – or even started – their family.
This led to a policy of weighing the risk of cancer and the advantages of avoiding hysterectomy and other treatments which would affect their fertility. Szarewski also said that a long term follow-up in these womens cases should be considered.
Source : © 2007 – eFluxMedia
