What is cervical cancer?
When cervical cancer is a malignant growth on the cervix. Such a malignant growth is called a tumor.
Cervical cancer usually develops slowly. In early cervical cancer can still be cured. Is the beginning of cervical cancer is not discovered in time, real cervical cancer.
The beginning of cervical cancer can be detected with a Pap smear.
There is a vaccine against cervical cancer. Girls and young women can be vaccinated with the vaccine. That can at the GP.
What are symptoms of cervical cancer?
Women with cervical cancer often experience unusual blood loss. Unusual blood loss is outside the normal menstrual blood loss, for example:
- during or just after sex (sexual intercourse);
- between menstrual periods;
- vaginal bleeding after the transition.
It doesn't have to be clear of bleeding. If there is only a little blood loss, you will see that to a brownish discharge.
If you have unusual blood loss, it is wise to go to the GP.
You should also go to the family doctor if you are suffering from:
- aqueous and dirty smelling discharge from the vagina;
- pelvic pain.
How does the doctor that you have cervical cancer?
To find out if you have cervical cancer, asks the doctor first to your symptoms. You will get a physical examination. This also includes an internal research. The doctor inserts a speculum into the vagina. So it may be the vagina and the cervix well see. Then the doctor brings one or two fingers into your vagina. The other hand places them on your abdomen. This gives the doctor an idea of the location and size of the organs in the lower abdomen.
Also makes the doctor a Pap smear. There are many abnormal cells in the smear? The doctor will send you to a gynecologist.
The gynaecologist repeats the searches. They also look at the cervix with a colposcope, a kind of strong. Maybe she takes in such an examination, a piece of tissue that looks different. A pathologist examines the piece of tissue under the microscope. It found the existence of (an early form of) cervical cancer.
More research on cervical cancer
If you have cervical cancer turns out to have, you will get more inquiries. These studies are needed to determine how advanced the disease is and if there are metastases.
The following examinations are possible:
- Internal research. The doctor will examine you internally to determine where the tumor is and how great he is. It does this quite extensively. The research can be annoying and painful. Therefore, it happens usually under general anesthesia.
- X-ray of the lungs.
- Ultrasound of the kidneys.
- CT scan of your abdomen.
- MRI scan of your abdomen.
- Pet scan.
Treatment for cervical cancer
The main treatments of cervical cancer are:
- surgery;
- radiation therapy (radiotherapy);
- chemotherapy;
- hyperthermia (heat treatment).
If the cervical cancer does not heal anymore, you will get a treatment to relieve the symptoms and disease.
Surgery for cervical cancer
At cervical cancer are two migrating operations:
- Is the cervical cancer in an early form and do you have a desire to have children? You will get a treatment to prevent cancer. This is a small operation in which your uterus.
- Is the cervical cancer in an early form and you have no desire to have children? Then you may probably choose. You get a treatment or the surgeon picks up your uterus road.
Usually the surgeon removes then:
- the whole uterus;
- the upper part of the vagina;
- a part of the supporting tissues around the uterus;
- the lymph nodes in the pelvis.
Radiation and hyperthermia in cervical cancer
The cervical cancer is advanced, you will get radiation therapy (radiotherapy). The radiation can destroy cancer cells in whole or in part. Irradiation can be done in two ways: external and internal. Usually gives the doctor a combination of these.
With external radiation, the radiation from an appliance. The radiation penetrates from the outside through the skin to the cancer cells. Four or five weeks long is you every working day a few minutes irradiated. You do not need in the hospital.
You will receive external beam radiation therapy in addition to surgery, then radiation therapy a few weeks after surgery.
With internal radiation (brachytherapy) places the doctor temporarily radioactive material in the uterus or in the upper part of the vagina. The radiation is done from within.
Sometimes the doctor combines radiation with hyperthermia (elevated temperature). The tumor is then heated to a temperature of 40 to 45 degrees. Cancer cells can there against bad. A part of the cancer cells die by hyperthermia. Other cancer cells are more sensitive to a different treatment.
Chemotherapy for cervical cancer
At cervical cancer you can get chemotherapy for several reasons:
- You will get radiation therapy for cervical cancer, you will get there probably chemotherapy in. Chemotherapy increases the effect of the radiation. You'll get the chemotherapy probably once a week in the period you irradiated. For that, you need one to two days in the hospital.
- You can also get chemotherapy before surgery to try to minimise the cancer.
- The doctor can also give chemotherapy as palliative treatment. The therapy then reduces the symptoms of advanced cervical cancer.
After treatment of cervical cancer
A treatment of cervical cancer is quite heavy, both mentally and physically. It probably takes a time for you can do your normal activities again. You may still feel tired or slap you for months. The emotional processing of the disease also costs a lot of time and energy.
Young women can by treating early in the transition. This happens when the ovaries are removed or are irradiated. The body then makes certain sex hormones anymore. To supplement the shortage of hormones you get hormone replacement medications.
Some women after surgery difficulty holding urine. It may be that in the operation of the bladder small nerves have been damaged. Therefore you feel that you must urinate. This occurs especially in the operation of Wertheim. The first months after the operation, it is wise to urinate at regular times. Most women can cease their urine again after a while.
Prospects in cervical cancer
If you disease-free five years after treatment of cancer are, chances are you are cured. However, it is difficult to say when someone really healed.
On average, seven out of ten women with cervical cancer survive the disease.
The tumor is only in the cervix (stage I), then life after five years eight out of ten women.
The tumor has grown to in the supporting tissues or the upper part of the vagina (stage II), then life after five years six out of ten women.
The tumor grew further to the pelvic wall or in the lower part of the vagina (stage III), then life after five years three of the ten women.
The tumor is grown outside the pelvis or grown in the bladder or rectum (stage IV), then life after five years five to twenty of the hundred women. Stage IV also applies to metastasis of cervical cancer in other organs, for example in the lungs or bones.