Apollo Hospital don cautions on cervical cancer

Dr. P. Vijay Anand Reddy, a senior consultant and clinical oncologist, director of the Apollo Cancer Hospitals in Hyderabad, India, made the call in Dar es Salaam in exclusive interview with The Guardian on Sunday.
He said cervical cancer is the leading cause of cancer related deaths in developing countries although it’s curable when detected early.
The expert called on women to take part in regular screening exercises that take less than 15 minutes to secure their health.
Cervical cancer is a cancer arising from the cervix. It is due to the abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body. The sexually transmitted Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the cause of virtually all cervical cancer cases. Although most infections with HPV cause no symptoms, persistent genital HPV infection can cause cervical cancer in women. Virtually all cervical cancer cases (99percent) are linked to genital infection with HPV, the most common viral infection of the reproductive tract.
Dr. Reddy explained that HPV is a virus that can be easily spread through direct sexual contact, from the skin and mucous membranes of infected people.
Sexually transmitted HPV types fall into either low risk or high risk categories. Low risk HPV (6, 11) do not cause cancer, while high risk subtypes 16 and 18 cause cancer. More than 90percent of cervical cancers are related to the presence of HPV, he said, noting that this is now accepted as a necessary cause of most cervical cancers.
Two vaccines have been formulated. One of them targets four HPV types 6, 11, 16 and 18. The other vaccine mainly acts against HPV types 16 and 18. These vaccines have been tested and have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of United States and also by the European Medicines Agency (EMEA). “Excitement surrounding the HPV vaccine is not surprising given that half a million women a year develop cervical cancer and half of those die as a result,” the consultant noted.
Yet in Tanzania there are several ways of prevention by screening premalignant cervical lesion as recommended by WHO, since premalignant lesion when discovered are treated with a cure rate of up to 100 percent.
It is estimated that every year 530,000 women worldwide are diagnosed with cervical cancer, and around 275,000 die from the disease, which accounts for 88 percent of deaths occurring among women in developing countries, according to an IARC report.
Tanzania has the highest reported number of cervical cancer cases in Eastern Africa and some of the very highest in the world, recent health studies demonstrate.
An Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI) report has lately indicated that cervical cancer accounted for 35.3 percent of all cancer patients and 80 percent of patients diagnosed with cervical cancer died within five years of diagnosis.