Cervical cancer

• Radiotherapy (using high-dose X-rays or other high-energy rays to kill cancer cells) is used to treat both early and advanced-stage diseases. Sometimes your doctor will use it alone or in combination with surgery. A common way to receive radiation is externally, just like an X-ray and this is done as an outpatient. Another procedure involves having the radioactive source placed inside your body , which continues to emit energy for a specific period of time. This is done during a two or three day hospital stay.
• Chemotherapy is the use of drugs to kill cancer cells. Chemotherapy may be taken by mouth or it may be given intravenously. Chemotherapy is called a systemic treatment because the drugs enter the bloodstream, travel through the body, and can kill cancer cells outside the cervix. Chemotherapy with platinum has been shown to make radiation more effective.

Surgery is normally used to tackle abnormal cells or a localised cancer while radiotherapy and chemotherapy are the more likely treatments for an invasive cancer of a more serious nature.

Prevention

New anti-HPV vaccines such as Gardasil protect the high-risk strains of wart virus associated with 70% of cervical cancers. Gardasil also protects against the HPVs causing 90% of genital warts. Gardasil is licensed for use in children aged 9 - 15 years (girls and boys to protect their future partners) and women aged 16 - 26 years. Another effective way to help prevent cervical cancer is to have regular cervical smear tests, and screening is still needed even if you have been vaccinated against HPV. Found early, pre-cancerous cervical changes can usually be cured. Most of the women who die from cervical cancer have never had a smear.

Stopping smoking will also reduce your risks of this disease, and will have numerous other health benefits as well.

Support organisations

CancerBACUP
3 Bath Place, Rivington Street, London, EC2A 3JR
Tel: 020 7696 9003
Helpline: 0808 8001234
Fax: 020 7696 9002
www.cancerbacup.org.uk
E-mail: info@cancerbacup.org
Understanding cervical smears
Cervical cancer
CancerBacup provides a national information and support service to cancer patients and their families and friends by phone and letter. Also provides a confidential counselling service, based in Glasgow, and cancer support centres at Nottingham City Hospital and the Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry.