Women who have had severe cell changes in the cervix and who have been operated on for them run twice the risk of developing cancer later in life, compared with other women.
This is shown by research from the Sahlgrenska Academy in Gothenburg Sweeden that is now being published in British Medical Journal.
Swedish women are regularly called in for cell tests. In cases where severe changes in cells are discovered, the outer layer of the portio vaginalis is removed in an operation. Annually some 10,000 women in Sweden undergo this operation for cell changes in the cervix. If the cell changes are left untreated, there is a great risk of developing cervical cancer or vaginal cancer.
But despite this operation and subsequent monitoring, these women still face 2.5 times the risk of developing cervical cancer or vaginal cancer compared with other women. This is shown in a Swedish study now being published in British Medical Journal.
“It is remarkable that the risk of cancer continues to be elevated even though the sections of the tissue where cervical cancer usually starts have been removed,” says the study’s lead author, Björn Strander, a doctoral candidate at the Sahgrenska Academy and chief physician at the Oncology Center for the Western Sweden health-care region.
The researchers have been able to monitor women for more than 25 years after treatment and have found that the risk does not decline substantially after a long period. The elevated risk was greatest among women who were over the age of fifty when they underwent treatment for the cell changes.
¬“The treatments are successful since only about one percent of these women develop cancer, but it appears that women have not been monitored carefully enough with cell samples and not long enough after their treatment,” says Björn Strander.