Cervical Cancer Essay

ChiAnne Rodriguez
Mr. Dippie
Adv Anatomy
20 November 2017 Cervical Cancer Cervical cancer is a disease that forms in the cervix, it is caused by abnormal growth that can spread to other parts of the body. Symptoms of this cancer are vaginal bleeding, pelvic pain, and pain while having sexual intercourse. Cervical Cancer is very uncommon here in the United States there less than 200,000 cases per year occur. Most cervical cancers begin in the cells in the transformation zone. Cells do not automatically become cancerous, the cells develop pre-cancerous cells that turn into cancer. There are many factors that contribute to cervical cancer one being HPV which is the most important factor. HPV can have effect on cells on the surface of the skin, and cells lining the genitals. Another factor is smoking, smoking exposes you to cancer causing chemicals that can have effect on
organs besides the lungs. Women who smoke are twice as likely to have cervical cancer. According to “cancer.gov” Hispanic/Latino women have more incidents with cervical cancer topping at 13.8 but African American women are the most to die being the highest deaths at 4.9 out of 100,000 women. You can prevent cervical cancer by having regular screenings, using condoms, and HPV vaccines. Cervical cancer affects the columnar epithelium tissue; the diagnosis procedure is a cervical screening followed by a biopsy.
Although cervical cancer is very uncommon there are treatment options which are surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. Surgery for cervical cancer most of the time makes it where you can no longer have children, the surgery is a hysterectomy which removes the uterus and cervix. Chemotherapy uses ant-cancer drugs that are injected or given by mouth; the drugs enter all parts of the body making it to where it’s able to possibly kill all the cancer cells in the body. Chemo is also given in cycles, so all the drugs won’t be too harsh on the body and so that you can have a recovery period. If you have a large area of cervical cancer this is when radiotherapy is usually used. Chemotherapy is used with radiotherapy often, chemotherapy weakens the cervix cells for radiotherapy which makes it more effective. Josttrust.org explains what radiotherapy does “Prognosis of cervical cancer is for a five-year survival rate 68% of women survived in the United States and only 48% percent survived in India. As you can see cervical cancer is a very tough cancer to fight off.” Lastly even though cervical is tough to fight off and is very rare, if you catch it early there is a very good chance of survival rate.
The five-year survival rate for the ones with stage 0 cancer is close to 93%, the latest cancer has the survival rate of only 15% which means it is better to catch it early. Women should make sure they get pap smears yearly and checkups because if they do have cervical cancer they can catch it early. Cervical cancer can spread quickly throughout the body and is hard to control later in the stages. Cervical can spread from the vaginal and cervix to the lymph glands. It can also spread to the pelvic glands such as the bladder; it depends on how advanced the cancer is and how quickly it’s spreading. Cancers similar to cervical cancer can be anal cancer, and oropharyngeal. About 95% of anal cancers are caused by HPV and 70% of oropharyngeal cancers are caused by HPV as well. All the cancers have HPV in common; if you are sexually active you should use condoms, so you can avoid getting HPV and can possibly help from get cervical cancer and
others.