Cervical Cancer: November 2006 Archives

The Australian Medical Association (AMA) has welcomed a decision to put the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil on the national immunisation program, but says screening for older women must be stepped up.

The Federal Government has given the go ahead for the $436 million immunisation program which will be carried out through schools from April next year.

It will also be available through GPs for the next two years for women aged 18 to 26.

The AMA's national president, Doctor Mukesh Haikerwal, says the move will reduce cervical cancer rates into the future, but it does not reduce the need for normal screening.

DUBAI - A controversial cervical cancer vaccine, which was recently approved in the UAE, may be included in the immunisation programmes of the various health authorities, says a senior official at the pharmaceutical company.

The vaccine protects against certain types of the human papilloma virus (HPV), a sexually transmitted infection that causes cervical cancer in women.

About half a million women worldwide die of cervical cancer each year. It is controversial as some have argued it may encourage promiscuity.

HAVANA (AFP) - Cuba has patented a new treatment for cervical cancer with less harmful side effects than conventional therapies, a group of researchers said.

The treatment involves a peptide that inhibits and kills the CK2 enzime found in high concentration in malignant tumors, said Silvio Perera, who leads the Molecular Oncology project of Cuba's Biological and Genetical Engineering Center.

"The idea behind this new product is to develop it for use in related tumors of the anus and genital area and, in future, for lung cancer," Perera told 600 researchers from 40 countries gathered at the 2006 Havana Biotechnology Congress.

Americans are in the dark about a virus linked to cervical cancer that can kill them, two new studies suggest.

A vaccine exists to protect against types of the virus, called human papillomaviruses (HPV).

But when the vaccine is presented under the umbrella of sexually-transmitted-disease protection, women are less likely to get inoculated.

Every year in the United States, about 6.2 million people get HPV.

Anyone who has ever had genital contact with another person can get HPV. Both men and women can get it — and pass it on to their sex partners — without even realizing it.

The studies were presented Sunday at the American Association for Cancer Research's Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research meeting in Boston.

by Jacki Donaldson, The Cancer Blog

Cervical cancer was once the most common cancer in women. But between 1955 and 1992, the number of cervical cancer deaths dropped by 74 percent -- thanks to increased use of the Pap test, a screening tool that can find changes in the cervix before cancer develops and can also detect cancer in its most curable stage. The Pap test is still widely used. And the cervical cancer death rate continues to drop four percent every year.

In 2006, about 9,700 new cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the United States. About 3,700 women will die from the disease. Non-invasive cervical cancer is believed to be four times more common than the invasive form of the disease. Nearly all of these cases can be cured.

AUSTRALIA - The number of Aboriginal women dying of cervical cancer in the Northern Territory has been reduced by half in the past 10 years because of increased screening.

Figures from the Menzies School of Health Research show that in the mid 1990s only 34 per cent of Indigenous women were being screened for cervical cancer.

Researchers say that over the past 10 years a cancer prevention program has increased the proportion of Aboriginal women having pap tests to 44 per cent.

For more than 60 years the Pap smear has been the screening method of choice for cervical cancer, but it is not the best approach for assessing risk in older women, new research suggests.

Findings from a large, Danish study provide compelling evidence that testing for human papillomavirus (HPV) is more effective for identifying older women with a high risk of developing cervical cancercancer.

Cervical cancer is caused by HPV infection, which is spread through sexual contact. Two specific types -- HPV 16 and HPV 18 -- are believed to be responsible for up to 70% of cases worldwide.

HPV is fairly common among younger women, but in most cases infection is transient and does not pose a health risk.