HEALTH WATCH: CERVICAL CANCER AWARENESS

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January is Cervical Health Awareness Month. It marks a new year on the calendar, a month to make a resolution where women's health is concerned. In Trinidad and Tobago, cervical cancer is the fourth leading cause of death due to cancer among women.    In this health watch segment, Dr Sherene Kalloo, Gynecologist and Obstetrician explains how Early Detection of Cervical Cancer through Screening can save lives.

Transcript

00:00The TV6 Health Watch is brought to you by Alive, giving you more minerals and vitamins

00:05than leading brands, distributed by H&J Enterprises Ltd.

00:14Cervical cancer is considered to be a preventable disease.

00:16However, in the Caribbean, it is still the fourth most common cause of death among women.

00:22Almost all cervical cancer cases are linked to infection with high-risk human papillomavirus,

00:27an extremely common virus transmitted through sexual contact.

00:31According to Dr. Shireen Kalu, most infections with HPV resolve on its own, but sometimes

00:37persisted infections can cause cervical cancer in women.

00:41Pap smells are done from the time a patient becomes sexually active, and it is continued

00:48initially every two to three years until you reach the age of 65.

00:57And if you're doing the HPV testing as well, then you don't need to do a pap smear every

01:02two to three years.

01:04You have five years once the HPV test is negative.

01:07HPV is really the source of the problem that we need to look at, hence the reason we encourage

01:14patients to also do HPV testing.

01:17Dr. Kalu says prevention is better than cure, and encourage women who are sexually active

01:23to get tested.

01:25If you do want to come for your screening, pap smears, et cetera, and you present later

01:30in life, what you present with is abnormal bleeding, bleeding after sex, pelvic pain.

01:38If it's spread and it's gone to the bladder or the bowel, you can actually get problems

01:42with the bowel.

01:43So you can have bleeding with stooling.

01:47You can have urinary tract symptoms and bleeding in the urine, but that's when it's late stage,

01:52as in stage four.

01:54The doctor says there are over 200 types of HPV, and out of those, 14 of them are associated

02:01with cancer.

02:02But there's good news because now there's a vaccine available.

02:06The vaccine is available in the public and private healthcare system.

02:10We do have a vaccine available in the public sector and the private sector.

02:15So it covers not 100% of the ones that cause cervical cancer, but the most important ones.

02:25So type 16 and 18 are the two most common ones, accounting for about 70% of cervical

02:31cancers, and those are included in the vaccine.

02:35The gynecologist said women and men between the ages of 9 to 45 can't get the HPV vaccine.

02:42I am Charlotte Kisto with tonight's Health Watch.

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