PNS/ DEHRADUN
To mark the World Cancer Day, a Dehradun-based gynecologist and obstetrician Dr Sujata Sanjay chaired a webinar in which over 40 medical students and nurses participated. Addressing the webinar, she spoke in details about cervical cancer, stressing that although cancer does not discriminate on gender, some special types of the dreaded disease happens only to women and the most prevalent of them is cervical cancer. The latter is the most common among Indian women, she said, adding that it develops in the cells of the uterus or cervix.
She further said that cervical cancer is being seen in women who start having sex at an early age, have unprotected sex with more than one partner and are very active in sex life. “Cancer is a serious and life-threatening disease in which healthy cells of the body start growing uncontrollably and form a tumour or malignant lesion,” she said.
She warned that delay in identifying it could make treatment difficult. She advised the sexually active women and post-menopausal adult women to get themselves tested every year. Apart from this, one can prevent cervical cancer by getting HPV vaccination done for all the teenage girls and unmarried girls of the family before they become sexually active. “But remember that even after vaccination, there is a need to get a test done regularly through VIA screening or Pap smear test and HPV-DNA test every three years. Women above the age of 35 and women who have been married for about five/six years should get themselves checked every year,” she stressed.
