ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 4, 1996 TAG: 9604040066
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BETHESDA, MD.
SOURCE: Associated Press
Almost 5,000 American women die of cervical cancer annually, and virtually all the deaths could be prevented by routine Pap smears and by safe sex, a National Institutes of Health panel of experts concluded Wednesday.
``In theory, cervical cancer is a cancer that we can completely prevent,'' said Dr. Patricia S. Braly, a gynecological cancer specialist at Louisiana State University and chairwoman of a panel of experts appointed by NIH.
``If we could reach all the women in this country who are not getting regular Pap tests,'' she said, ``we could eradicate this type of cancer.''
The committee issued a report Wednesday evaluating the current methods of preventing, detecting and treating cervical cancer.
About 15,700 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed annually in the United States. Worldwide, 470,000 cervical cancer cases are diagnosed every year, second only to breast cancer.
The committee found that about half of the women with cervical cancer in the United States never had a Pap test, an office procedure in which cells are scraped from the cervix and analyzed. Properly performed, the test can detect abnormal cells before they become cancers and can lead to early treatment that can preserve both life and fertility.
``Use of the Pap smear is effective in reducing morbidity and mortality from cervical cancer,'' the panel concluded.
The committee also concluded that virtually all cervical cancers are related to infection, at some point in life, by the human papilloma virus, a sexually transmitted disease.
Spread of the virus can be prevented by the use of condoms, the panel said. It also strongly recommended that young people delay the start of sexual activity as long as possible and limit the number of partners.
So common is the infection, Braly said, that one study of women who first became sexually active in college found that 25 percent had some form of HPV within one year.
``Typically, most every young woman now fits into the high-risk category for cervical cancer,'' Braly said. ``The only women who aren't [at high risk] are those who didn't have sex until after 18 and never with more than two [lifetime] partners, and those partners must not have had sex with more than two partners.''
Smoking, oral contraceptives and other sexually transmitted diseases are also risk factors, the panel found.
The committee urged aggressive use of Pap tests and endorsed annual tests for women with one or more risk factors.
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