Cervical Cancer

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)

Breast cancer gets a lot of attention - and not just during October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. There's a good reason for that, as any of the quarter-million American women diagnosed with breast cancer each year will tell you. But breast cancer isn't the only serious health risk women should be aware of, according to county health professionals. Some are fatal; others are not. Some are well-known, others obscure. All affect the person's quality of life, and all affect more women than men. We talked with some Howard County doctors in the know to find out what to look out for and where to learn more locally.

Correction: An earlier posting misstated the percentage of lesbians who had not received pap tests compared to all women. The Sun regrets the error. Many gay women are not being screened for cervical cancer, putting them at increased risk of developing the potentially fatal disease, according to new research by the University of Maryland School of Medicine Nearly 38 percent of about 1,000 lesbians polled by University of Maryland researchers had not received routine pap smears  to screen for cervical cancer.

The National Women's Law Center says the health care law known as Obamacare will be good for women, providing them access to crucial preventive services. The group outlines the benefits here. What kind of preventive women's services will be covered under health reform? The Affordable Care Act requires new health plans to cover certain preventive services without cost-sharing, which means no additional out-of-pocket expenses such as co-payments, deductibles or co-insurance. Many of the preventive services that are covered in all new health plans are particularly important to women.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American mother of five living in Baltimore County's Turner Station when she died, unheralded, of cervical cancer at the age of 31. Yet the malignant cells that killed her, which were taken from a cervical tissue sample without her consent, have lived on for decades after her death in laboratories around the world, where researchers are still using them to develop treatments and vaccines that have benefited millions of...

Michael Douglas told the Guardian newspaper recently that his throat cancer was caused by the HPV virus that he contracted performing oral sex over the years. The actor's admission brings attention to a health problem more doctors are seeing. HPV, which is widely known to cause cervical cancer in women, is also causing cancer in men as well. Dr. Kevin J. Cullen, an oncologist who specializes in treating head and neck cancers, recently spoke to The Sun about the growing number of HPV-related cancers doctors are seeing in men. Cullen, the director of the University of Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center, said there are precautions that can be taken.

It is well known that HPV (human papillomavirus) can lead to deadly cervical cancer in women, but the virus is causing cancer in men as well. Throat cancers caused by HPV are showing up typically in men with little or no history of smoking, said Dr. Kevin J. Cullen, an oncologist who specializes in treating head and neck cancers. Cullen, the director of the University of Maryland's Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Cancer Center, talks about the growing cases of HPV-related throat cancers.

Johns Hopkins scientists have found a way to screen for hard-to-detect endometrial and ovarian cancers in women using a routine Pap smear, a discovery they hope eventually could reduce the number of deaths caused by the deadly malignancies. The researchers from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center hope the Pap smear, a procedure in which cells are scraped from the cervix and examined under a microscope, can catch the two cancers in early stages and allow for earlier treatment. The Pap test has dramatically improved detection of cervical cancer over the years, curbing deaths by 75 percent among those who are screened.

Scientists have always thought the HPV virus clears most women after a couple of years, but new evidence suggests it may linger in the body undetected and reappear later in life. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health followed 850 Baltimore women aged 35 to 60 who received regular cervical cancer screenings. They found that reactivation may increase in women around 50-years-old. Results of the study, which was conducted in partnership with researchers at Perdana University Graduate School of Medicine in Malaysia, were published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Correction: An earlier posting misstated the percentage of lesbians who had not received pap tests compared to all women. The Sun regrets the error. Many gay women are not being screened for cervical cancer, putting them at increased risk of developing the potentially fatal disease, according to new research by the University of Maryland School of Medicine Nearly 38 percent of about 1,000 lesbians polled by University of Maryland researchers had not received routine pap smears  to screen for cervical cancer.

Each year, about 11,000 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed in the United States, according to the National Cancer Institute. This cancer is relatively slow-growing and may not cause any symptoms, but it can be detected with regular tests called Pap smears. If detected early enough, the cure rate - or five-year-survival rate - is about 80 percent, says Robert E. Bristow, director of the Kelly Gynecologic Oncology Service and the Ovarian Cancer Center of Excellence at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

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.

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.