The month of January is Cervical Cancer Month, which is the fourth most common cancer globally and the third and second most frequent cause of cancer-related deaths among Nigerian women between the ages of 15 and 44.

It was also said, that more than 44 million women in the word stand to develop cervical cancer between the year 2020 and 2069. As of last year December about 4.7 million Nigerian girls have been vaccinated against the Human Papilloma virus, HPV.

It’s a good thing that Federal government is providing vaccination for young girls.

The organisation called Good Health Weekly spoke to reach out Clinical and Radiation Oncologist /Head of Brachytherapy at NSIA-LUTH Cancer Centre, Dr Bolanle Adegboyega, who uncover the new methods of treatment for cervical cancer and challenges faced by patients, said the disease is now common in Nigeria.

1:What is cervical cancer and how prevalent is it among Nigerian women?

“Cervical cancer is a type of cancer that develops in the cervix. The cervix is like the mouth of the womb when a woman is about to deliver, the area doctors measure is called the cervix”.So the cancer that arises from that part of the body is called cervical cancer. It is the second most common cancer among Nigerian women after breast cancer. Up to, like 12,000 new cases are reported annually and about 8,000 result in death because many people present late Cervical cancer is generally associated with sexual activity. You see it more in people who are sexually exposed, who have multiple sexual partners, or people who started having sexual intercourse earlier than 13 years of age, and people who have multiple numbers of children because before you give birth, you must have had sex.

2: Challenges patients commonly face during treatment:

“Since the cervix is the private parts, so coming to the hospital to see a doctor, especially a male doctor, who would examine the private part might cause discomfort to some patients. And that may be one of the reasons why some patients won’t present early. It’s not something you will be proud to tell people that you have cancer – not cancer on the hand, leg, neck and all – it’s somewhere there”.

“The major challenge is cost, because the total cost of treating cancer can be over N2 million to N3 million and how many Nigerians can actually afford that?

“Trust me, financial toxicity is a major problem in cancer treatment. Even when patients come in early, it might take them months before they can raise money to do tests, it will take him/her another year to be able to raise money for the treatment. So cancer that had not spread before he/she came might have spread to other parts of the body due to the delay in raising funds”.

3: Steps women should take to prevent cervical cancer:

“The good thing about cervical cancer is that it’s one of the preventive cancers because vaccines can be used to prevent it. As we speak, the Federal Government, and Lagos State government, have rolled out the Human Papilloma Virus vaccines that are given to children 9 to 14 years old. Anybody above the age that is not sexually exposed can also take it.

The major cause, as I told you, in over 90 per cent of cervical cancer is actually with human papilloma virus. So the vaccine is to prevent that virus such as if somebody is taking the vaccine, you are sure that you are not going to get the virus.

Another way that people who are being sexually exposed (for example married women) is that you should do routine pap smear screening and send it to the lab in order to be sure that there are no changes that are occurring towards cancer.

After the test, some people may just need some form of surgery, which may noteven be a major surgery or remove their womb to take care of cancer. Why? Because this cancer comes from the womb if there’s no womb and you have completed your family you are not going to have cervical cancer but the earlier you detect it, the better.

4: Treatment options available for patients:”

The treatment ranges from surgery that is done in a very early stage. Surgery can be carried out when it is not yet a full-blown cancer. Unfortunately, we have few people falling into that category but the commonest form of treatment is a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy together. Chemotherapy is used to treat it alongside radiotherapy. Radiotherapy is broken into two. There is external radiotherapy and internal radiotherapy. The external is called beam therapy while the internal is called brachytherapy. Brachytherapy treatment actually brought close to the tumour. So, we need the combination of these three – chemotherapy, radiotherapy and brachytherapy – to treat cervical cancer before we can achieve a cure”.

5:Role of brachytherapy in the treatment of cervical cancer:

“Brachytherapy is a radiotherapy treatment from a short distance. Brachy means short, it is usually taken as close to the cancer itself compared to the other radiotherapy which is external (it is from a distance).

Brachytherapy’s role is that when the big machine (external radiotherapy) has treated cervical cancer to a particular stage, Brachytherapy will treat the remaining part. Your treatment is not complete until you use brachytherapy.