Cervical cancer is a condition that affects the cells close to the vagina that can be located in the lower section of the uterus, which is called the cervix. The majority of cases of cervical cancer are caused by the human papillomavirus (Klügel et al., 2017). Overall, cervical cancer develops as a mutation within the DNA of the cervix cells that alter the “instructions” inherent in the cell’s program. At a certain point, healthy cells start growing even quicker than they used to and stop dying. It causes a tumor to develop and ultimately turn into metastasizes and affect the given body area. Some of the evident early-stage symptoms related to cervical cancer cannot be identified. Nevertheless, there are advanced symptoms that display after the person was affected by cancer to a certain extent. For example, according to Klügel et al. (2017), women may be subject to feeling acute pelvic pains during sex and experiencing vaginal bleeding throughout the post-intercourse. It could also be followed by a foul scent coming from bloody vaginal discharge.
One of the most common treatment options for cervical cancer is surgery. In this case, the tumor is removed together with a portion of adjacent healthy tissue to prevent cancer from spreading (Ramirez et al., 2018). Another treatment method is radiation therapy that utilizes powerful x-rays to destroy unhealthy cells. Overall, the radiation oncologist is responsible for identifying the cells that could be removed with the help of x-rays and establishing if radiation therapy would be the best choice for the patient (Lin et al., 2018). The third common treatment option is systemic therapy, which aims to reduce the number of damaged cells with the help of medication. The latter reaches cancer cells through the bloodstream.
References
Klügel, S., Lücke, C., Meta, A., Schild-Suhren, M., Malik, E., Philipsen, A., & Müller, H. H. (2017). Concomitant psychiatric symptoms and impaired quality of life in women with cervical cancer: A critical review. International Journal of Women’s Health, 9, 795.
Lin, Y., Chen, K., Lu, Z., Zhao, L., Tao, Y., Ouyang, Y., & Cao, X. (2018). Intensity-modulated radiation therapy for definitive treatment of cervical cancer: a meta-analysis. Radiation Oncology, 13(1), 177.
Ramirez, P. T., Frumovitz, M., Pareja, R., Lopez, A., Vieira, M., Ribeiro, R.,… & Isla, D. (2018). Minimally invasive versus abdominal radical hysterectomy for cervical cancer. New England Journal of Medicine, 379(20), 1895-1904.