Tracking Cervical Cancer

By

DR. MRS. Meenal Kumar, M.D. senior gynecologist and menopause consultant, sector 20 civil dispensary, Chandigarh

DR.R.KUMAR M.S., OPHTHALMOLOGIST AND HEALTH COLUMNIST, 232 SECTOR 16, CHANDIGARH

Cervical cancer news and trends:

a) Herpes, HPV May Spell Cervical Cancer- (Health Scout News-06/11/2002)

New research suggests that herpes and another common sexually transmitted virus can be a deadly combination, raising the risk that infected women will develop cervical cancer. The findings seem to explain why some women are more prone to cervical cancer. "We know that HPV (human papillomavirus) causes cancer, but a lot of people have HPV and never get cancer," explains Stephen E. Hawes, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Washington at Seattle and author of a commentary on the new study.

An estimated 13,000 American women fall victim to cervical cancer each year and 4,100 will die, according to the American Cancer Society. However, tests known as Pap smears let many more stop the disease in its tracks before it becomes serious. Deaths from the cancer dropped by 74 percent from 1955 to 1992, after the tests became popular. Scientists think at least 90 percent of cervical cancer cases are caused by HPV, which may be the most common sexually transmitted disease. HPV causes inflammation, which makes the cervix more hospitable to cancerous cells by preventing them from dying naturally, Hawes explains. "This process can take years to develop -- 20 to 30 years after you have your initial HPV infection," he says.

Some scientists have suspected that herpes could make things worse. An international group of researchers tested that theory by examining medical records from seven countries of 1,263 women with cervical cancer and 1,117 women free of the disease. The findings appear in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The researchers from the International Agency for Research on Cancer found signs of infection with herpes simplex virus 2 in about 44 percent of the women with cancer, but only in 26 percent of the other women. They also found HPV in nearly 95 percent of the women with cancer, but only in 15 percent of the healthy women. Of all women who were infected with HPV, herpes increased their risk of cervical cancer by two to three times.

Dr. Tom Wright, a pathologist at Columbia University, says the findings confirm those of a 1991 study in Latin America. However, it's still unclear how herpes works to make women more susceptible to cervical cancer since the virus doesn't cause as much dangerous inflammation, he adds. There is hope for the future, however. "The biggest issues right now are the development of vaccines to prevent infection with high-risk types of HPV and new molecular tests to identify those women at greatest risk for developing cervical cancer," he says.

b) New Technique Tested Against Cervical Cancer (Reuters-04/09/2002)

British scientists have devised a new technique that kills cervical cancer cells without harming healthy ones, which could improve treatment for the deadly disease. The technique, called RNA interference, wipes out the deadly cells by silencing genes in a virus that contributes to the illness. "Our work has identified a novel agent with major therapeutic potential for the treatment, and possibly also the prevention, of human cervical cancer," Professor Jo Milner, of the University of York, said. Unlike chemotherapy, which has serious side effects because it destroys healthy as well as cancerous cells, RNA interference restores the immune system and only targets the cancerous cells. Cancer develops when something goes wrong during normal cell division and instead of destroying itself; the mutated cell develops uncontrollably and forms a tumor.

Cervical cancer, the second most common cancer in women worldwide, is linked to the human papilloma virus, which attacks two important proteins in the body called p53 and RB. RB controls cell division and p53 kills damaged cells that could become cancerous. Without them mutated cells can multiply uncontrollably. But in laboratory studies using cancer cells from human tumors, Milner and Dr. Ming Jiang found that when they silenced two genes in the virus all the cancer cells died while healthy cells w

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