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Cervical Cancer Essay

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Cervical cancer malignant cancer of the cervix uteris or cervical area. It may present with vaginal bleeding but symptoms may be absent until the cancer is in its advanced stages, which has made cervical cancer the focus of intense screening efforts using the Pap smear. About 2.2 percent of women carry one of the 2 virus strains most likely to lead to cervical cancer. One of the symptoms of Cervical Cancer is very Unusual amount of discharge. Treatment consists of surgery in early stages and chemotherapy and radiotherapy in advanced stages of the disease. An effective HPV vaccine against the two most common cancer-causing strains of HPV has recently been licensed in the U.S. These two HPV strains together are …show more content…

Although there are several known risk factors for getting cervical cancer, no one knows exactly why one woman gets it and another doesn't. One of the most important risk factors for cervical cancer is infection with a virus called HPV (human papillomavirus). HPV is a sexually transmitted disease that is incredibly common in the population, one study showed that 43% of college age women were infected in a 3-year period. HPV is the virus that causes genital warts, but having genital warts doesn't necessarily mean you are going to get cervical cancer. There are different subtypes, or strains, of HPV. Only certain subtypes are likely to cause cervical cancer, and the subtypes that cause warts are unlikely to cause a cancer. Often, infection with HPV causes no symptoms at all, until a woman develops a pre-cancerous lesion mostly of the cervix. Because infection with a STD is a risk factor for cervical cancer, any risk factors for developing STD are also risk factors for developing cervical cancer. Women who have had many or several male sexual partners, having sexual intercourse at an early age, or have had male sexual partners who are considered high risk (meaning that they have had several sexual partners and/or began having sexual intercourse at an early age) are at higher risks for developing Cervical

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