Rise in cervical cancer cases due to lack of awareness

Dr Ginger Ruddy, Dr Carol Haubach, Dr Allison Barrie, Elana Sanford, Leonie Wolff and Kavya Guda from PINCC participated in this workshop. The team organised a training session on screening of cervical cancer and Leep and Crayo procedures.

They also organised a screening programme for women on cervical cancer in this workshop.

Dr Ginger Ruddy said that the objective of workshop was to train the nursing staff to conduct screening in the rural areas by using a simple method of acidic acid to detect cervical cancer at early stage.

Dr Ginger Ruddy said, “By simple acidic acid test, we can identify any abnormal cells in cervical area at once. If there is any abnormality in cells, we can suggest those women for biopsy and pap smears. Acidic acid test is cost effective and gives speedy results.” The team expressed concern over staggering increase of cervical cancer cases among poor people.

Dr Sujatha of BIACHRI said, “150 women were examined in this workshop. Among them 38 went for Pap smears, 11 for cervical biopsy, six for cryotherapy and 8 women for Leep. They were advised further check up. When compared to the women in the west, the incidence of cervical cancers is high among women in India due to lack of awareness, illiteracy and poverty. In the west, women are much more aware of the screening of cervical and breast cancers.”

“For every three years, women should go for screening for prevention of cancer. In the case of HIV patients, they should go for screening every one year. Another important thing is the lack of women doctors in rural areas which makes the situation even worse as women there would be hesitant to go to the health centres for check up if lady doctors were not available,” said Dr Kalpana Raghunath.