Cervical Cancer Is The Main Cause Of Death In Women

Illustration (Photo: Doc Antara)

JAKARTA - Oncology Gynecology Consultant Eka Hospital BSD Dr. Muhammad Yusuf said cervical cancer is one of the main causes of death in women and in Indonesia ranks second.

"Currently, the cervical office is still a frightening scourge for women in developing countries, including Indonesia," said Muhammad Yusuf as quoted by ANTARA, Sunday, October 6.

In many cases, cervical cancer sufferers often come with advanced stages, because they were not detected before.

Even though cervical cancer can be detected and prevented by doing regular pap smears.

The benefits of pap smearing are to see whether there are abnormalities or not in uterine cells before developing into cancer. "This examination should be carried out regularly so that cervical cancer can be detected and treated early on." he said.

It should be noted that in most cases almost no symptoms are found in people with cervical cancer. However, women must remain vigilant if they have complaints of repeated and smelled whiteness, bleeding outside the menstrual cycle, and bleeding or patches when having sex.

Ideally pap smear is carried out by all women who are married and have sexual activity. Women who are sexually active are recommended to make a papa smear every three years, if no symptoms, complaints, or initial detection are found.

"However, if a doctor finds symptoms with a high risk, it is recommended to do pap smear every year. Meanwhile, pregnant women if there are no abnormalities, they may do pap smear after giving birth, at least three months after birth," he said.

When doing a pap smear, the obstetrician will check by taking a few tissue samples from the cervix and then checked in the laboratory.

The results of the pap smear examination of almost 90 percent are normal. In the case of pap smear abnormal, it does not always indicate that the woman has cancer, but needs further examination.

In line with the development of medical technology, Eka Hospital has now provided an early examination of cervical cancer through a co-testing pap smear examination.

"This is the latest version of the conventional Pap smear examination that can provide more accurate results and has been widely used in developing countries, including in Indonesia," he said.

Co-testing Pap smear is a new form of examination that combines Pap smear examinations and HPV DNA tests.

With the HPV DNA test, people can detect the presence of the HPV virus in the body, while the pap smear examination is useful for detecting abnormal cells in the cervix that have the potential to turn into cancer cells.

"Thus, the co-testing pap smear method can help doctors to detect early stage cancer more than just a papa smear test," he concluded.