HJBR Sep/Oct 2019

CERVICAL cancer 18 SEP / OCT 2019 I  Healthcare Journal of BATON ROUGE   Causes and Detection Widespread availability of Pap testing has been the most significant single fac- tor allowing early diagnosis. Pap testing alone resulted in a 70 percent decrease in mortality once it became easily accessible to women. More recently, vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) have demon- strated remarkable efficacy in the preven- tion of cervical cancer. To understand how these approaches work, it is important to recognize the fac- tors that give rise to cervical malignancy and the obstacles that limit efforts at prevention and early diagnosis. Virtually all cervical cancers demonstrate molecular evidence of HPV. Although about 75 percent of sexu- ally active adults have had exposure to HPV, Cervical Cancer incidence in developed countries, including the United States, has fallen dramatically in recent decades. Despite this, cervical cancer prevalence in Louisiana remains high in comparison to most of the rest of the country. Louisiana has the 6th highest incidence in the U.S., and the 7th highest mortality. There are many reasons that more of our population is susceptible to this malignancy. State-of-the-art management is available in Louisiana, but the keys to success are early diagnosis and prevention. “…vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) have demonstrated remarkable efficacy in the prevention of cervical cancer.”