Cervical Cancer

Many women became used to having a Pap smear annually to check for cervical cancer, but recent recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force have updated the timeline. Now, most women will need the test every five years. Cancer experts now agree that that this can fully protect women, while cutting down on costs, false positive test results and side effects, said Dr. Amanda Nickles Fader, assistant professor of gynecologic oncology at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

Johns Hopkins University Engineering students unveiled devices Monday that they hope will lower the number of still births and deaths from fever-related illnesses in developing countries. FeverPoint is a screening test that uses a cotton thread and a drop of blood to check for causes of fevers related to malaria, bacterial pneumonia and other infections. The device works similar to a pregnancy test in that it does not require water or electricity, which are not readily available in some countries.

Thousands of women were diagnosed with cervical cancer this year, despite advances in testing and prevention. If left undiscovered and untreated, the cancer can be deadly, said gynecological oncologist Dr. Dwight D. Im, director for the Gynecologic Oncology Center at Mercy Medical Center. He answers questions ahead of National Cervical Cancer Screening Month and national Cervical Health Awareness Month in January. Question: Who gets cervical cancer, and how common is it? Answer: In the United States, cancer of the cervix (the lowest portion of a woman's uterus or womb)

Many women became used to having a Pap smear annually to check for cervical cancer, but recent recommendations from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force have updated the timeline. Now, most women will need the test every five years. Cancer experts now agree that that this can fully protect women, while cutting down on costs, false positive test results and side effects, said Dr. Amanda Nickles Fader, assistant professor of gynecologic oncology at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

Rural Somerset County is full of folks like Joe Reading, who used to dip his bare hands in DDT, still uses other chemicals on his farm and bathes his dinner greens in bacon grease. And Lewis W. Jones, a medical clinic director who smoked two packs of cigarettes a day until recently. And Weltonia Engram, who avoided getting Pap smears because she was afraid she might learn she had cancer.Smoking, diets loaded with fat and salt, exposure to cancer-causing chemicals and poor access to health care may be clues to why one in 321 Somerset residents dies of cancer every year.

E dward Akira Sawada, an obstetrician and gynecologist who was a noted cervical cancer expert, died Nov. 28 at Manor Care Dulaney nursing home in Towson of injuries suffered two years ago in an automobile accident. The longtime Towson resident was 89. Dr. Sawada, the son of Japanese parents, was born and raised on Guam. He had settled on pursuing a medical career as a youngster, and after graduating from Guam Institute High School, left the island in 1941 to attend Georgetown University and its medical school.

Since it seems that more and more types of cancer can be inherited, I would like to know if a recent diagnosis of cervical cancer in my mother increases my own risk for this form of cancer.To date, there is no evidence that inherited genes play a significant role in the development of cancer of the cervix, the narrow lower portion of the uterus. Much evidence points to infection with certain human papilloma viruses as a cause, since they are detected in more than 90 percent of cervical cancers.

Cigarette smoking has emerged as a powerful influence in the development of cervical cancer and of distorted cells that are precursors of malignancy, researchers say.These distorted cells, which can be detected in Pap tests, frequently evolve into a serious cancer if left untreated.In a new study at the Montefiore Medical Center in New York, of 60 women who had advanced cervical cancer, 85 percent were smokers. There also was evidence to suggest that the remainder had significant exposure to passive smoking, generally through spouses who smoked.

Some years ago I was involved in persuading the Maryland General Assembly to pass a law requiring that all women admitted to a hospital be offered a Pap test to screen for cervical cancer. We thought we had made a significant contribution to cervical cancer prevention. But the number of cervical cancer deaths in Maryland is still high. Of the 4,000 women in the United States who will die of cervical cancer this year, about 77 will be from Maryland. Ann Klassen, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, and Dr. Neil Rosenshein, associate professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, have been looking at this problem, and I recently asked them about it.Q: Who is at risk for cervical cancer?

ROCKVILLE -- A small company hoping to market a do-it-yourself Pap test kit to detect cervical cancer saw its hopes dashed yesterday by a panel of the Food and Drug Administration, although panelists applauded the applicant's goal of reaching disadvantaged women.The Obstetrics-Gynecology Devices Panel voted 4-2 to recommend FDA disapproval of a plastic tubular device called My-Pap, which drew controversial testimony from the lay public and the medical profession.Panelists said that Medtech Inc. of Bohemia, N.Y., did not prove that its test would be used by the target group of women and also questioned whether the results would give users a false sense of security.

Dr. Raymond L. Markley Jr., a retired Baltimore gynecologist whose specialty was female urology, died March 4 of pneumonia at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. The former longtime Towson resident who was residing at Oak Crest Village, was 89. The son of a Lutheran minister and a homemaker, Raymond Law Markley Jr., was born in Chambersburg, Pa. When he was a teenager, he moved with his family to Lynchburg, Va., when his father was assigned to a church in the city. They later moved in 1936 to Greencastle, Pa., where he graduated in 1939 from Greencastle High School.

The percentage of Americans screened for cancer isn't meeting national targets, and the numbers are even worse for minorities, according the first federal study looking at disparities among Asiand and Hispanic groups. The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute showed breast cancer screening rates were 72.4 percent, below the 81 percent target set in a national health plan called Healthy People 2020.  It was 83 percent for cervical cancer, missing the 93p ercent mark, and colorectal screening was 58.6 percent, missing hte 70.5 percent target.

"Game on, cancer!" With those words, Katie White and her fellow Manchester Valley High School teammates took to the volleyball court Oct. 12 to fight not only their opponents from Brunswick, but cancer - in all its many forms. Fighting cancer has become a personal mission for the team. During the squad's first season three years ago - Manchester Valley had just opened - White's mother, Cheryl, was diagnosed with cervical cancer. The team banded together and with the help of coach Mindy Unger, organized the first Serve Up a Cure fundraiser.

The kerfuffle between Republican presidential candidates Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry over the HPV vaccination, administered to young girls in order to prevent cervical cancer later in life, is the perfect example of why you might not want a politician to be your pediatrician. During a debate last week in Tampa, Bachmann described the vaccination, which Perry attempted to make mandatory in Texas where he is governor, as a "government injection" and "a violation of a liberty interest.

With visible excitement, Chris Glass runs his finger across a large wall map of the world at the world headquarters of the nonprofit, IMA World Health, in New Windsor. He carefully traces his route to Tanzania, then taps his finger gently on Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest peak on the African continent. In a few weeks, Glass, a Westminster native and a communications officer with IMA World Health, will be climbing the 19,336-foot summit. His objective is to raise both awareness and funding to fight for Burkitt's lymphoma, a particularly aggressive form of childhood cancer for which IMA provides treatment in Tanzania and other Third World countries.

State health officials released an ambitious plan Tuesday to reduce cancer deaths, using the latest strategies to prevent, detect and treat the disease — and save the lives of an additional 1,200 Marylanders a year. "Our goal in Maryland is to have to lowest incidence of cancer of any state," said Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein, secretary of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in announcing the Maryland Comprehensive Cancer Control Plan. "This is our road map. " The plan, which includes the reduction of racial disparities and an increase in screening, is designed to maintain Maryland's progress in battling cancer.

It is hard for me to believe that medical science has given us the great gift of a vaccination against cancer and we are arguing about whether our daughters should receive it. But that is exactly what is happening with Gardasil, found to protect against the human papillomavirus that is responsible for 70 percent of all cervical cancers. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that also may cause genital warts. A woman's immune system can often defeat it in a couple of weeks, but the virus can also insinuate itself into cervical cells where it can cause malignancy years later.

For years, Dr. Susan Love was an "army of one," urging medical science to focus on the cause of breast cancer instead of its treatment, on women instead of laboratory mice. Today, thanks to efforts of the best-known breast cancer advocate, there is an "Army of Women" — women (and men) volunteers who have signed up online to participate in studies that might find the answer to a stubborn cancer that claims almost as many women's lives today as it did 30 years ago. Every year, an estimated 200,000 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in the United States, and 40,000 will die. Love will return Friday to the College of Notre Dame, where she was once an undergraduate pre-med student, on a recruiting trip.