Eulalee Thompson
Too many women are dying of cancer of the cervix although this type of cancer is preventable with a simple screening test.
WATCH DOGS of world health, such as the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and World Health Organisation (WHO), are stepping up the ante when it comes to cancer of the cervix and this is understandable.
This form of cancer, which attacks women's cervix, that is, the base of the womb, kills more women each year than does the process of childbirth, according to PAHO. About 230,000 women in Latin America and the Caribbean die each year from this preventable
ailment, and the agency further
projects that by 2020, as many as 750,000 women will die annually if prevention programmes are not stepped up.
Regular pap smear (tests) is the prevention strategy recommended by medical doctors, but even with this available tool, PAHO indicates that not enough women are using this intervention.
A recently released PAHO report, 'A Situational Analysis of Cervical Cancer in Latin America and the Caribbean', found that screening programmes failed to reduce prevalence and mortality rates largely because of inadequate treatment and follow-up.
While these same screening programmes have brought the North American incidence and mortality rates to below 10 per 100,000 females, Latin American and Caribbean countries still struggle with rates which are higher than 20 cases per 100,000 female. The PAHO report says that in many cases the rates are higher than 20, and these more than acceptable rates are only surpassed by rates in East Africa and Melanesia. In Jamaica, it is the second leading cancer, after breast cancer.
LACK OF KNOWLEDGE
The report highlighted these regional problems below:
Women may be afraid to get screened because they fear cancer and lack knowledge about treatment options. In a study of rural Mexico, only 40 per cent of women knew what a Pap test was.
Women often have to wait so long for Pap smear results that they lose interest in the process and fail to return for follow-up.
Health centres may fail to automatically schedule diagnosis and treatment, preventing timely follow-up.
Many programmes lack sufficient quality control in smear sampling, collection, preparation and interpretation of results. A 1996 study in Mexico found that false negatives ranged from 10 per cent to 54 per cent in 16 reading centres.
Younger women are screened more often than older women, despite their lower risk of developing the disease.
Screening coverage of target populations remains low in many countries.
PAHO research and other research generally available in the medical community, analysing age-specific mortality rates in four sub-regions of the Americas, observes that cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates increase with age. However, in spite of this observation, the burden of the disease falls on women in the middle years. In Latin America and the Caribbean, PAHO indicates that women aged 35 to 54 bear the greatest burden of mortality from the condition each year.
This is one cancer where the medical community have put their fingers on a specific cause. The culprit is a virus called, the Human Papillomavirus (HPV). There are
several variants of the virus and the medical experts say that it is passed on through sexual intercourse. They also believe that other environmental factors facilitate the likelihood of developing cervical cancer. These factors include cigarette smoke, hormonal contraceptive, diet and other infectious organism. PAHO's report (a situational analysis) cites epidemiological studies that indicate that women testing positive for HPV are twice as likely to have been smokers when compared to the control group in the study.
Since the medical community knows the
virus that causes cancer of cervix, and since there is a screening test for the cancer, it is highly preventable; it is for women to want to take control of their health and this is a difficult transition to make.
You can send your comments to eulalee.thompson@gleanerjm.com.
