Purple Project

Cervical Cancer, Signs & Symptoms, Treatment, Prevention and more on December 15, 2010.

What is Cervical Cancer?

Worldwide, cervical cancer is twelfth most common and the fifth most deadly cancer in women. It affects about 16 per 100,000 women per year and kills about 9 per 100,000 per year. Cervical cancer kills 270,000 women each year –mainly women in the developing world in the prime of their productive life.

Approximately 80% of cervical cancers occur in developing countries. Worldwide, in 2008, it was estimated that there were 473,000 cases of cervical cancer, and 253,500 deaths per year. Yet cervical cancer is preventable by screening asymptomatic women for precancerous cervical lesions and treating the lesions before they progress to invasive disease.

The cervix is the narrow portion of the uterus where it joins with the top of the vagina. It is the lower, narrow end of the uterus also known as the womb. The uterus is where a baby grows when a woman is pregnant. The cervix connects to the upper part of the uterus to the vagina (the birth canal).

When Cancer starts in the cervix, it is called cervical cancer. All women are at risk for cervical cancer and it occurs mostly in women over 30 years of age. Most cervical cancers are squamous cell carcinomas, arising in the squamous (flattened) epithelial cells that line the cervix. Adenocarcinoma, arising in glandular epithelial cells is the second most common type. Very rarely, cancer can arise in other types of cells in the cervix.