July 29, 2010, Thursday

KUALA LUMPUR: Hong Kong pop star and actress Anita Mui, well known among Cantopop fans worldwide, died less than four months after revealing that she had cervical cancer.

SHARING EXPERIENCE: Sambhi one of the seven ambassadors of the POCC campaign. — Bernama photo

Known for her energetic and flamboyant on-stage persona, Mui died on Dec 12, 2003, at the age of 40.

Her elder sister succumbed to the same disease three years earlier.

Throughout the world a woman died of cervical cancer every two minutes and the disease claimed more than 270,000 lives each year.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that cancer of the cervix kills more women annually than death during childbirth.

It is the second most common malignancy amongst women, after breast cancer. in Malaysia, 12.2 of every 100,000 of the female population are diagnosed with cervical cancer.

WHO also reported in 2007 that more than 700 Malay-sian women succumbed to cervical cancer every year.

All women are at risk but if diagnosed early, cervical cancer is curable.

Former beauty queen and model, Genevieve Sambhi, proved that early detection could save lives.

Following a routine screening Sambhi discovered that she had cervical cancer.

“When I found out, it was very difficult. Like everyone, I think it shouldn’t happen to me. but it did,” she told a media conference recently.

Throughout her radiation and chemotherapy treatment, Sambhi began to think that she should do something. no woman should undergo the ordeal that she had gone through.

“It takes an enormous courage for a person to come out and share this experience. you don’t want people to come and look into your personal life. but I need to give a lot of awareness to women out there. I have a real personal reason for telling other women about the benefits of Pap smear and vaccination,” she said.

Sambhi is one of the seven ambassadors of the Power Over Cervical Cancer (POCC) campaign.

Other POCC ambassadors are Pamela and Vanessa Chong (of Amazing race Asia Season 2 fame), TV hosts Siow Hui Mei and Rina Omar, DJ Jay Menon, and actress/TV personality Sarimah Ibrahim.

“Today I got clean bill of health. It’s been a year since I had my hysterectomy. I’m a bit lucky. I already have children, a little boy and a girl and received tremendous support from my family,” Sambhi said.

The National Cancer Society of Malaysia (NCSM) has started the POCC campaign in an effort to increase awareness on the disease and helps reduce its occurrences in the country.

POCC, supported by GlaxoSmithKline, aims to educate and empower Malaysian women to increase awareness of cervical cancer as a preventable disease.

One of the key elements of the campaign is the Cervical Cancer Risk Questionnaire, a discussion tool which consists of two sections highlighting information on cervical cancer and a woman’s risk for contracting cervical cancer.

The questionnaire encourages women to self-evaluate and discuss options to protect themselves.

“POCC has been actively advocating disease awareness and encouraging Malaysian women to seek available preventive measures against cervical cancer for well over a year now,” executive director and medical director of NCSM, Dr Saunthari Somasundaram said.

“We are amplifying the campaign by creating advocates who are passionate about saving lives because every woman has the right to live a life free from cervical cancer.

“Cancer is a social disease. It affects every aspect or women’s life and often affecting their career and family,” said Dr Saunthari.

Cervical cancer is caused by persistent infection with an extremely common and contagious virus – the human papillomavirus (HPV). both younger and older women are at risk.

There are 100 types of HPV but only about 20 cause cancer, most commonly the 16 and 18 strains which cause about 70 per cent of all cervical cancers.

It is estimated that 50 per cent to 80 per cent of women will acquire a genital HPV infection in their lifetime, and up to 50 per cent of those infections will be potentially cancer-causing. the risk starts right from sexual debut. Progression of cervical cancer disease may have no symptoms hence it can remain undetected.

A number of other factors appear to contribute to the persistence of cancer causing HPV infection, and therefore the development of cervical cancer.

The factors are young age at first sexual experience, high number of pregnancies, cigarette smoking, sexually transmitted infections and long-term use of oral contraceptives.

Although these factors may have an impact on the development of cervical cancer, it has been proven that cancer-causing HPV infection is the ‘necessary cause’ of cervical cancer.

Cervical cancer if diagnosed early, is also curable. Early detection of abnormal cells that may potentially turn cancerous is needed.

This can be done via an annual Papanicolaou test (more popularly known as Pap smear), which detects changes in the cells of the cervix. Screening programmes using Pap smears are an important early detection tool, but they do not detect all pre-cancerous lesions or cancer.

However, the risk of developing cervical cancer is approximately five times higher in women who are not regularly screened.

There is now a vaccine available against the HPV 16 and 18 strains but this vaccine works best if given to females before they become sexually active with the recommended age being between nine and 14 years.

For more information log on pocc.com.my or cancer.org.my. — Bernama