Cervical Cancer Could Be Eliminated In The U.S. In 20 Years; Study
US News & World Report, Feb. 11, 2020.
Cervical cancer could be eliminated in the U.S. in about 20 years—with over 1,000 new cases avoided each year—if 90 percent of eligible women are screened, a study suggests. If current trends continue, the U.S. is on track to eliminate the disease which develops on the cervix—the entrance to the uterus from the vagina—in the next two to three decades, according to the authors of the study published in the journal The Lancet Public Health.
But if more women are screened, the disease could become rare by either 2038 or 2046, according to two computer models used by the researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Computer models enable scientists to crunch data to make forecasts about problems, like the incidence of diseases, based on different scenarios.
Cervical cancer is one of the most preventable and treatable forms of the disease, with the sexually transmitted infection the human papillomavirus (HPV) the cause of 99 percent of cases. In 2018, the World Health Organization made a call to see cervical cancer eliminated worldwide, setting the threshold at four or fewer cases per 100,000 women. Rates of the condition in the U.S. dropped by more than 50 percent between 1975 to 2015, partly due to screenings. This year, the American Cancer Society predicts 13,800 new cases of cervical cancer will be diagnosed in the U.S., and around 4,290 will die.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends boys and girls get their shot against HPV at around the age of 11 or 12. Meanwhile, women aged between 21 to 29-years-old are advised to get what is known as a Pap test, where a clinician checks to see if the cells in the cervix are healthy, every three years...
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