Las Cruces— the words “preventable” and “cancer” aren’t always seen in the same sentence.
We get frequent reminders of the traditional prevention methods to help counteract cancer and many other illnesses: Eat a healthy diet including lots of fruits in vegetables, exercise and avoid smoking, get regular screenings. Those screenings are important for many types of cancer, but don’t catch abnormal cells until they have already become just that: Cancer.
From 1955 to 1992, cervical cancer was one of the most common causes of cancer death for American women, according to statistics by the American Cancer Society. but since then, death rates have declined by almost 70 percent, due to increased use of the Pap test, a screening that is unique because it can detect changes in the cervix before cancer develops, thus making it the first step in halting the possible progression of abnormal cells into cervical cancer.
“This is one of the few cancers that’s preventable, because the Pap test will help you find it before it’s cancer, as opposed to mammography, which won’t find one you can treat prior to malignancy,” said Gena love, head of the Cancer Prevention and Control Section for the New Mexico Department of Health. Preventing HPV
Love said though there has been a tremendous decrease in mortality in cervical cancer cases, it is still not being caught at 100 percent. in New Mexico, approximately 80 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year, and about 26 women die from the disease each year, she said. only 3 percent of those cases are the invasive kind of cancer, and the rest are localized, in situ (“in place”) cancers.
Risk factors for cervical cancer include exposure to secondhand smoke and exposure to the human papilloma virus (HPV), a large group of related viruses and the most common sexually transmitted infection that can develop into cervical cancer in women. because being exposed to HPV can happen very soon after one becomes sexually active (according to the American Cancer Society, almost half of HPV infections are found in people between the ages of 15 and 25, and one-half to three-fourths of sexually active people will have the virus at some point in their lives), the HPV vaccine is recommended for young girls before they ever get exposed to that virus, love said. HPV can live inside the body for up to several years without symptoms, she said, and the body can clear the virus on its own, so some people may never even know they were exposed to the virus and may clear it without harm. but for others, it can develop into cancer.
“The body, for the most part, is able to deal with that virus, but it can progress into invasive cervical cancer,” love said. “Why some people can clear that virus without problems and others don’t is hard to pin down.”
More than 99 percent of cervical cancers are caused by HPV, and 70 percent of those are caused by HPV types 16 and 18, which can be prevented by taking the vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix.
Love suggests following the Centers for Disease Control guidelines, which recommend that girls ages 11 to 12 get vaccinated. Women from ages 13 up to 26 can also be protected by taking it. Girls as young as age 9 are able to take it, she said.
“The vaccine seems to be very promising in preventing the acquisition of that virus in young girls,” she said.
However, the vaccines don’t protect against all of the strains that can become cancerous cells.
“One of the messages we want to get out there is it only protects for certain types of HPV,” love said. “Even if you are protected against the most common types, you are not protected against all of them, so you still need to get Pap tests.” How often should women get screened?
Love said it is difficult to say how often women should get Pap tests and at what age they should begin getting tested, because test frequency is based on age, the type of test and previous results. Generally it is recommended that women start at age 21 or within three years of the first time they have sex, and every other year after that for the first 60 months. no matter what the frequency is, it’s important that women keep getting regular Pap tests and converse with their doctor about how often to do it and when to stop, she said. Unless told by their doctor that it is OK to discontinue getting tested, women should continue up until age 65 or the cervix is removed, she said. though the test may not be the most comfortable experience or something women look forward to, she said, it’s one of the most effective and low-risk.
“It is one of the most reliable and effective cancer screening tests available,” love said. “We don’t want to suggest that screening is easy – no one really likes to have it – yet compared to others, it’s relatively painless, quick, inexpensive and sensitive. if you’ve got abnormal cells, it’s very likely to find them.”
And with regular screenings, cervical cancer can be caught early, which is beneficial because the cancer has few symptoms and can be difficult to detect without a Pap test. though it is preventable, if it goes too long before it’s detected, it can be harder to treat.
“It is a very slow-growing disease from the time abnormal cells might be seen on a Pap test to cervical cancer might be a decade or more,” love said. Treatment
For localized cancers that are caught early, treatment may just be limited to the cervix, and cells are removed off of the surface, love said. if the cancer is invasive, more extensive surgery might be required, and if the disease has metastasized to other areas of the body, regional treatments like radiation and chemotherapy will be needed. the sooner the cancer is caught, the more likely it will be easy to treat. if it’s local, the average woman has an 88 percent chance of curing the cancer and surviving. if it spreads regionally, that five-year survival rate drops down to 52 percent. if the cancer becomes distantly spread, the survival rate decreases further lower to 18 percent, she said.
Love stressed that the most important prevention method is getting regular Pap tests.
“There are more women dying of other types of cancer than the 26 (women who die of cervical cancer each year in New Mexico), yet the tragedy is that those deaths could have been prevented,” she said. “A lot of people die from cancer that couldn’t be prevented but this is one that we could have saved those lives. This is one cancer that women don’t have to die from.” Get screened
The Department of Health has breast and cervical cancer early detection programs, and offers both free Pap tests and breast screenings to women who meet specific criteria. To receive free testing, women must be 30 or older, uninsured or underinsured, and at or below the federal poverty line. For more information, visit the New Mexico Department of Health Cancer Prevention and Control website, cancernm.org/bcc, or call the toll-free number: (877) 852-2585. Did you know…
In the U.S.:
About 12, 200 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed, and about
4, 210 women will die from cervical cancer in 2010.
In New Mexico:
Approximately 80 women are diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer each year
Approximately 26 women die from the disease each year
Most cancers are localized, in situ, non-invasive tumors that have not penetrated other tissues. Three percent of all new cancer cases in the state are the invasive form of cervical cancer.
Almost two-thirds of the women diagnosed are under the age of 55, but mortality is more likely to occur in older women: two-thirds of the deaths from cervical cancer are of women age 55 and older. Freelance writer Sara Cobble can be reached at .