National Cervical Cancer Coalition Stresses Importance of Screening and Prevention During January Cervical Health Awareness Month

December 27, 2007 (Van Nuys, CA)

Women Urged to Take Action and Protect Themselves in New Year

Approximately 10,000 American women will learn they have cervical cancer/HPV this year, and nearly 4,000 will die from an advanced form of the disease. This January, during Cervical Health Awareness Month, the National Cervical Cancer Coalition (NCCC) is focused on educating women about the importance of the Pap test as a screening tool for cervical cancer/HPV and about vaccines that can further reduce the burden of this devastating disease.

It's the start of a new year - a time many reflect on their health. To start the year right, we encourage women to contact their health care provider to schedule a Pap test to check for cervical cancer. This screening is a crucial part of a woman's health care regimen, yet one that many overlook. "It's important to remember that cervical cancer is a preventable disease - as long as it's caught early enough," says Ms. Sarina Araujo, Executive Director of the NCCC.

While routine administration of Pap tests is the best means of detecting cervical cancer at an early stage, vaccines have the potential to protect women from the disease, by targeting cancer-causing types of the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV, a virus transmitted through sexual contact, is the single known cause of cervical cancer. Two forms of the virus, HPV 16 and HPV 18, account for more than 70 percent of all cervical cancer cases. Some medical experts believe that through a successful education, screening and vaccination program for women, we will have the potential to nearly eliminate cervical cancer in the U.S.. More >>

Failure to Diagnose Cervical Cancer Malpractice Lawyers

 Subscribe to Cervical Cancer News Information Links

Mother's cervical cancer diagnosis brings family closer

December 23, 2007 (El Paso, TX)

For years, the Marquez children have hung their stockings at the fireplace at home. But this year, it's hard to sustain the Christmas cheer.

David Alex Marquez, 18, the eldest child, said he and his siblings don't want toys or gadgets under the tree. This year, the only gift they want is for their mother to get well.

In August, doctors discovered that Sandra Marquez, 37, had advanced cervical cancer. Early last week, the mother of six signed her will and power-of-attorney paperwork.

One doctor recommended she be placed in hospice care, but her own mother, Elsa Marquez, is not ready for that to happen. More >>

Misread Pap Smear Malpractice Attorneys

 Subscribe to Cervical Cancer News Information Links

Cervical cancer vaccine approval delayed by FDA

December 18, 2007

The Food and Drug Administration dealt a blow to GlaxoSmithKline PLC in delaying approval of one of the company's most important new products: the cervical-cancer vaccine Cervarix.

GlaxoSmithKline said the FDA sent it a so-called complete response letter, which the regulator issues when the review of a drug or vaccine is completed and questions remain to be answered before approval. More >>

Misread Pap Smear Medical Malpractice Attorneys

 Subscribe to Cervical Cancer News Information Links

PET Scan tracks cervical cancer

December 17, 2007

A machine invented at Washington University to reveal the inner workings of brains and hearts is emerging as a premier tool for tracking cervical cancer.

The device, called a positron emission tomography (PET) scanner, is similar to MRI scanners but uses radioactivity instead of X-rays to create images of blood flowing through organs, brain activity and other processes.

New research from the Siteman Cancer Center at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University show that PET scans are more accurate than any other method at predicting the aggressiveness of a cervical cancer tumor. The device also effectively shows whether treatments had destroyed the cancer.

Previously, doctors had no way to determine whether radiation or other therapies were working until a patient experienced symptoms or another tumor was found.
Advertisement


"The look on (patients') faces, the happiness and the joy when you tell them, 'It looks like you're going to do really well.' That's really powerful," said Dr. Julie K. Schwarz, a Barnes-Jewish Hospital resident in the Department of Radiation Oncology.

Schwarz was the lead author on one of the PET studies that was published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Her research team studied women who had PET scans three months after completing radiation and chemotherapy between 2003 and 2006. The scans provided a more reliable measure of whether the cancer would recur, and, just as importantly, revealed whether the cancer was already beginning to return.

Each year, more than 10,000 women develop cervical cancer in the United States; about 3,900 die of the disease.

Kristy Monroe, 40, was lying on her back recently in Barnes-Jewish Hospital, swathed from chin to toe in white blankets. Red lasers painted stripes across her body and bald head as she passed through the large doughnut-shaped PET scanner. Monroe was diagnosed with cervical cancer in September, and nearly every day since, she has spent at Siteman Cancer Center being bombarded with radiation and dosed with chemotherapy.

Monroe also is part of a continuing study to determine whether PET scans can effectively monitor treatment. More >>

 Subscribe to Cervical Cancer News Information Links

Ask Dr. Weil: Is the HPV cervical cancer vaccine safe?

December 11, 2007

This Q&A was published in the Rock Mountain News: "HPV vaccine a sure lifesaver for thousands."

I have a teenage daughter, and I'm wondering about getting her the vaccine that prevents cervical cancer. Is it really safe?

The vaccine you're wondering about protects against infection with two strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV), which are responsible for 70 percent of all cases of cervical cancer.

The FDA approved the vaccine (Gardasil) in June 2006, and that same month, a federal advisory panel on immunization practices recommended that all 11- and 12-year-old girls be vaccinated. More than half of all men and women pick up HPV within a year of becoming sexually active. The vaccine won't work for women who are already infected with HPV, which is why it's important to immunize young girls before they become sexually active.

In 90 percent of all cases, HPV infections clear up on their own and cause no obvious symptoms (except, in some cases, genital warts; the new vaccine will also protect women against the viruses responsible for 90 percent of all cases of warts).

About 10,000 women in the United States develop cervical cancer every year, and the disease leads to about 3,900 deaths annually. Most of those cases and deaths could be prevented if all women had Pap smears. Worldwide, cervical cancer kills more than 288,000 women a year.

The vaccine undoubtedly will save thousands of lives around the world among your daughter's generation and future generations of women.

misread pap test lawyers

 Subscribe to Cervical Cancer News Information Links

Targeting the infectious agents behind cancers: Cervical cancer HOV vaccination

December 10, 2007

Possibly as many as a fifth of all forms of cancer are caused by chronic infections, and if vaccine and drug efforts were substantially boosted worldwide, thousands of cancers could be prevented, a leading expert is positing.

Dr. Andrew Dannenberg, director of the Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, estimates that pathogens underlie anywhere from 15 to 20 percent of cancers affecting people globally.

Many of the infectious agents that can cause cancer are more problematic in poorer countries where vaccine technology is nonexistent and costs to purchase from abroad prohibitive.

The World Health Organization has underscored that the lack of money and poor refrigeration capacities in many underdeveloped countries makes access to the HPV vaccine difficult.

"There are about 450,000 new cases of cervical cancer each year worldwide, and more than 200,000 deaths," Dannenberg said. "We know that HPV 16 and 18 account for 70 percent of all cervical cancers and that the development of the HPV vaccine has led to an opportunity to a prevent primary infection, and prevent cervical cancer.

"In the United States the number of cervical cancers is small. So the use of the vaccine in this country and in Western Europe may have important benefits. But there is a pressing need to be able to provide this type of vaccine in the developing world.

"The vaccine requires refrigeration. If a significant number of lives are to be saved we need one that doesn't require refrigeration," Dannenberg said.

"Currently, you have to give three vaccinations," for the HPV vaccine to be complete, he added. "If that could be reduced to just one vaccination, that would facilitate its use in the developing world." More >>

failure to diagnosis cervical cancer

 Subscribe to Cervical Cancer News Information Links

FDA Black Box Warning: Anemia drugs may elevate risk of cervical cancer progression

December 6, 2007
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in March slapped its strictest "black box" warning label on anemia drugs made by Amgen and Johnson & Johnson after study raises concerns about use by patients with cervical cancer.

Amgen Inc (AMGN) said on Thursday it is talking with U.S. regulators about updating safety warnings for anemia drugs, after data from two studies stoked concerns about their use by breast and cervical cancer patients.

Amgen also said it has been advised there will be an Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee meeting in the first quarter of 2008 as part of the review of the entire class of oxygen-boosting erythropoiesis-stimulating agent (ESA) drugs. More >>

cervical cancer attorneys

 Subscribe to Cervical Cancer News Information Links

Cervical Cancer Diagnosis: Pap Test v. HPV Test

December 3, 2007

While many women across the U.S. get pap and human papillomavirus tests, both of which check for cervical cancer, researchers are currently trying to decide which test is better.

The pap test is a yearly screening that women get to check for cervical cancer, and the HPV test checks DNA to see if a woman has a high-risk strain of the virus that can lead to cervical cancer.

At the present time, Mercy Medical Center gynecologist Dr. Christine Vergera said that the HPV test is only given if the pap test reveals atypical cells and doctors aren't sure of what's going on.
sponsor

"If it's atypical but no HPV is found, it's pretty normal. So, it's OK to come back in a year for screening. But if it's atypical and HPV is found, that can be a sign of a problem, and you may be asked to come back in for additional screenings," Vergera said.

If you have a high-risk strain of HPV, it can increase your risk of cervical cancer by at least 250 times, doctors said.

misread Pap Test lawyers

 Subscribe to Cervical Cancer News Information Links