Cancer screening involves tests or investigations done on a regular basis even without you having any symptoms. This gives a window of opportunity for us to intervene early and treatment options would be plenty for the patients.
Cervical cancer screening
In Indian women cervical cancer is the commonest and usually manifests in late 40s- 50s. Precancerous changes set in 10 -15 years before actual cancerous growth occurs and hence cervical cancer screening is recommended in all married/ sexually active women from 21 – 65 years of age.
Pap smear
Consult your gynecologist and get the pap smears done at least once in 3 years. Pap smear is a test done by collecting the cells from cervix (mouth of uterus) and looking for any abnormalities in it.
Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the commonest cause for cervical, vaginal and vulval cancers in women. Along with Pap smears you can also get screened for this virus. When pap smear and HPV DNA tests are clubbed together the screening frequency can be increased to 5 years.
HPV vaccine is ideally recommended for teenage girls between 11- 12 years or before the start of sexual life in women. It can prevent few high risk types of HPV infection and gives protection against cervical cancers and other cancers in women.
If missed at this age, still you can consider vaccination till the age of 45 years after discussing with your gynecologist and bring down your chances of cervical cancer.
It’s important to remember that Pap smear screening is still recommended even after HPV vaccination.
Breast cancers are on increasing trend in Indian women probably due to changes in life style, changes in food habits, increasing obesity etc. If you have a family history of breast cancer you need to be more vigilant and get screened on a regular basis.
Mammograms are screening tests recommended for breast cancer screening even before you notice any lump or any other symptom of breast cancer.
We also teach women as to how to do self breast examination (SBE) periodically to detect breast lumps and other changes in breasts, so that you can seek treatment at the earliest.
Few cancers like hereditary breast, ovarian , colon cancers can run in families and if you have a positive family history of any of these consult your doctor at the earliest and devise a screening and treatment protocol for these familial cancers.
Women with strong family history of breast and ovarian cancers need to be screened for BRCA 1/ BRCA 2 gene mutations and this in turn can help them in taking steps for prevention or treatment of these cancers.
Consult your gynecologist and discuss about it if you are one of those.