Cervical Cancer
In Weeks 1, 2, and 6, you completed portions of your research review paper. This week, your assignment is to put it all together to form a cohesive whole. All editorial comments and discussion notes should be compiled logically to complete this paper. Make sure that all three parts merge as a cohesive whole.
1 Clearly discussed the clinical significance.
2 Accurately summarized prior research.
3 Clearly defined the gap in research leading to your proposed research question.
4 Clearly stated your research question.
5 Ensured that your suggestions for methods are rational, doable, and appropriate for the proposed question.
6 Ensured that the paper is well organized and well written and demonstrates significant development in your ability to think and write from initial submission. Properly followed APA format.
WEEK 1 Cervical Cancer
According to the American Cancer Society (2015), cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of death amongst women in United States today. Experts project that, 12,900 cases of invasive cervical cancer will be diagnosed in 2015. The disease, though preventable, continues to be one of the leading causes of death due to ignorance.
Cervical cancer is caused by the Human Papilloma Virus, which is transmitted sexually and causes growth of the malignant cells. Although the rate of death from the illness has reduced by 70% in the past decade, there is still a need to create awareness about it in order to reduce the current mortality statistics (American Cancer Society, 2015). What’s more, the cancer affects young women between the ages of 20 to 50years. The population forms a large percentage of the university students and employees in the country. Failure to curb the disease will affect productivity in the nation.
Cervical cancer prevention is important as it ensures that the women’s reproductive health is protected. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has created strategies to ensure that American citizens focus more on disease prevention than cure. This ensures that people spend less on healthcare and that they live a long productive life. With regard to cervical cancer, the Affordable Care Act has eliminated the cost sharing on, among other preventive services, cervical cancer screening (Yabroff, 2015). This is meant to eliminate health disparities across all races and economic status. However, statistics indicate that this benefit has not been utilized accordingly due to lack of information about it.
Moreover, cervical cancer prevention techniques enable women to take care of their sexual health. This not only reduces the rates of cervical cancer but also the rates of Human Papilloma Virus infections (Miller 2014). In addition, other preventive measures such as immunization, helps to reduce other infections such as genital warts.
One of the questions that I would like to explore with regard to cervical cancer is why a woman should go for screening. Women skip their screening sessions out of disregard of the importance of screening. This results to preventable infections and death. The answers to this question would educate women on the significance of screening with relation to early detection and treatment.
Further, I would explore the question on how to raise awareness about cervical cancer. Ignorance about the ailment, its causes, prevention and available preventive services has contributed to the rates of infection and deaths. Awareness programs would help to educate women and cut the projected rates of cervical cancer infections by at least half. However, activities aimed at creating awareness ought to be creative and effective in order to reach the intended people (Miller, 2014). Thus, the answers to the question would educate on how women can form teams and effectively reach out to other women, to educate them about cervical cancer.
In conclusion, cervical cancer, though preventable, continues to be one of the leading causes of death due to ignorance. Although death rates from the disease have decreased, it is still among the leading causes of death among women in United States. Preventive measures would help to protect women’s reproductive health and ensure that other related infections such as genital warts are prevented. The questions that need to be explored, with regard to preventing cervical cancer, are why a woman should go for screening and how to raise awareness of the disease. This would help to reduce infection and death rates significantly.
References
Yabroff R, Han X. (2015). Has recommended preventive service use increased after elimination of cost-sharing as part of the Affordable Care Act in the United States? PubMed, 78. 85-91.
Miller J. (2014 April 21). Cervical cancer. Retrieved from https://www.womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/cervical-cancer.html
American Cancer Society. (2015 February 26). Cervical Cancer Key Statistics. Retrieved October 27, 2015 from https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cervicalcancer/detailedguide/cervical-cancer-key-statistics
WEEK 2
Traditionally, it has been thought that once diagnosed with cancer, the ultimate end of such an individual is death. However, according to research, the death rate of individuals with cervical cancer has reduced up to 70%, and there are also great potentials for reducing this number even further (Tewari et al., 2014). According to the article, Improved Survival with Bevacizumab in Advanced Cervical Cancer, a combination of chemotherapy with a newly designed drug, Bevacizumab, helped in reducing the number of deaths of those already diagnosed with cervical cancer. The study indicates that chemotherapy has been an important part of the reduction in the cases of deaths as a result of the human papillomavirus induced cancer, but Bevacizumab was playing an even better role in cutting down on the number of mortality from the condition even further(Tewari et al., 2014).
With the introduction of Bevacizumab in therapy, more than 62% of patients remained alive over a period of 12 months, which was significant as the mortality rate was higher before the introduction of the drug (Tewari et al., 2014) . The traditional chemotherapy also involved exposure to platinum. However, according to this study, there was no recorded correlation between the mortality in patients who had been exposed to platinum and who were also treated with the Bevacizumab as compared to those who were not exposed, but were still treated with the drug. This finding indicates that although there were other significant differences between different chemotherapeutic agents used in the management of cervical cancer, Bevacizumab was acting on its own in the reduction of the rate of mortality without being affected by the platinum exposure. Unfortunately, most patients were withdrawn from the regimen due to adverse effects and within a median follow-up of 20.8 months, about 60% of those patients in the study died from the burden of the disease (Tewari et al., 2014).
It seems, however, that there is only one way to make sure that there are no more deaths due to cervical cancer, and this is done by reduction of new infections. Human papillomavirus is sexually transmitted, and, therefore, one of the methods of reduction of new transmissions would be by abstinence. However, when being sexually active is inevitable, individuals can seek vaccinations against the virus (Dunne et al. 2015). In the article, Reduction in HPV vaccine type prevalence among young women screened for cervical cancer in an integrated health care delivery system, United States 2007, 2012-2013, it is found that the prevalence of vaccine type HPV had been reducing significantly in numbers from 30.1 % of the 4131women who had received the vaccination (Dunne et al. 2015). Since 2007, the figures were reducing gradually so that by 2012-2013, only about 6.2% of that population had any potential to contract HPV, and, therefore, they were the only percentage likely to have cervical cancer (Dunne et al. 2015). It is important to note that all these women were below the ages of nineteen, and since their numbers were significantly low, it was an indication that with vaccination, HPV could be completely eliminated and cervical cancer would be a thing of the past. The results show a confidence of 95% which is an indication that the success of controlling new cases of the condition is that high (Dunne et al. 2015). However, it is important also to note that the findings also show that those women with other infections such as Chlamydia may be prone to contract HPV than others, and, hence such infections also need to be managed to prevent infections.
References
Dunne, E. F., Naleway, A., Smith, N., Crane, B., Weinmann, S., Braxton, J., … & Markowitz, L. E. (2015). Reduction in HPV vaccine type prevalence among young women screened for cervical cancer in an integrated health care delivery system, United States 2007, 2012-2013. Journal of Infectious Diseases, jiv342.
Tewari, K. S., Sill, M. W., Long III, H. J., Penson, R. T., Huang, H., Ramondetta, L. M., … & Monk, B. J. (2014). Improved survival with bevacizumab in advanced cervical cancer. New England Journal of Medicine, 370(8), 734-743.
WEEK 6
Introduction
Cervical cancer is a disease claiming so many lives across the world. Statistics indicate that, more than 280000 deaths in women per year results from cervical cancer, around 86 percent of this number being from developing countries. Mostly, ladies usually feel the cancer is the end of their lives because they always think it cannot be cured (Kwabi-Addo & Lindstrom 2011). In most cases, women usually find it hard to know whether they have it or not until they go for screening. Some Ladies always to know if cervical cancer can affect their pregnancy or if they can get pregnant after treatment. The research question in this case would be “what are the effects of cervical cancer to one’s pregnancy?” With this research question, the researcher would provide helpful information to the reader through his or her findings and recommendations.
Symptoms and Treatment
Many women usually die because they only realize this disease when it is too late for it to be controlled. When noticed in early stages, the cancer can be controlled through chemotherapy and a drug known as bevacizumab (Wiloo 2011). This type of cancer is known to have no symptoms and that’s why medical experts encourage women to frequently go for checkups. In some occasions, unusual bleeding which may occur after sex, in between periods or after the menopause can be a sign that one is likely to have cervical cancer.
Test results
Sometimes women get shocked when cervical screening indicates abnormal results. This is because most of them tend to think the abnormal outcomes are as result of cervical cancer (Miller 2012). It is not all the time that abnormal results are caused by cancer. Sometimes they are caused by an infection or presence of treatable precancerous cells.
Cervical cancer and pregnancy
Cervical cancer is a clinical challenge especially when it is diagnosed during pregnancy (Collins 2013). Once the cancer expert has identified one has the cancer, known the stage and the extent of invasive cervical cancer, a multidisciplinary approach is always required. There should be a proper decision on the timing and delivery in order to ensure successful pregnancy.
Sometimes it is very true that after undergoing several cancer treatments one cannot get pregnant. This is always very distressing and only occurs in scenarios where the womb has been removed or the lady has undergone radiotherapy which has had negative effect on the ovaries. If someone has very early cervical cancer and would like to become pregnant after undergoing treatment, she should undergo cone biopsy or LLETZ, because with this kind of treatment the womb is not removed (Miller 2012). Depending on the amount of cervical tissues which has been removed when a lady undergoes these kinds of treatment, she may have small increase in risk of having premature birth. Research indicates cervical cancer which has been diagnosed during pregnancy does not spread as faster as in women who are not pregnant.
Conclusion
In most western countries, cervical cancer is nowadays highly preventable because people are now able to go for screening tests and vaccines to prevent human papillomavirus infections (Wiloo 2011). When the cancer is diagnosed in early stages, proper treatment measures which have minimum side effects on one’s reproductive system are available. The best way we can use to reduce the number of people who die from cervical cancer is making sure there is reduction of new infections. Papillomavirus is sexually transmitted therefore people should make sure they abstain, be faithful or use protections.
