The high incidence of cervical cancer stresses the importance of screening among women as a step towards timely diagnosis and treatment. Affirming this further, experts from Cancer Research U.K have disclosed that cervical cancer among women as young as 20 years apparently increased between 1992 and 2006 in England, although the cumulative fall in cervical cancer was 30%.
The study examined the overall trends in cervical cancer prevalence among women in the age-group 20 and 79 years from the period of 1982 to 2006. After an initial drop in the number of cases after cancer screening was introduced in England, cervical cancer incidences have been on the rise.
From 1992 to 1996, almost 5 women aged 20 to 19 in every 100,000 cases had been diagnosed with cervical cancer, states the report. The number apparently rose to 6 per 100,000 cases from 2001 to 2006.
Robert Alston, study author and Cancer Research UK scientist from the University of Manchester, specified, “Our results show that although numbers getting cervical cancer are dropping in the immediate years after cervical screening began, the numbers of women in their 20s now developing the disease have been rising since the early 90s.”
The latest figures between 2007 and 2008 presented that the rise showed a continuing trend with almost 9 cases of the 100,000 instances surfacing out as cervical cancer. The analysis stresses the importance of cancer screening which spots initial alterations in the cervix that is seemingly treatable before it advances to cancer.
Also, some factors like smoking are considered to be risk factors for cervical cancer. Alston concluded that HPV vaccination and cervical cancer screening for women above 25 years of age are crucial.
The study will be presented at the annual National Cancer Research Institute (NCRI) Cancer Conference in Liverpool.