Techniques For Abnormal Cervical Cells Have Risks

LONDON FEB 10, 2006 (Reuters) - Treatments to remove or destroy abnormal cells to prevent cervical cancer can cause problems during pregnancy, researchers said on Friday.

Cervical cancer is one of the most common cancers in women. Screening programmes to pick up pre-cancerous cells have helped to reduce the incidence of the illness.

But scientists who reviewed 27 studies into treatments for unhealthy cells on the cervix found the techniques can increase the risk of pre-term delivery, low birth weight and caesarean section delivery.

Dr Maria Kyrgiou, of Queen Charlotte"s and Chelsea Hospital in London, said the findings reported in The Lancet medical journal, will help to inform doctors about the consequences of the treatments.

"This information should be considered when counselling women before their consent to treatment and lends support to the philosophy of doctors not treating young women with mild abnormalities," Kyrgiou added.

Kyrgiou and her colleagues said laser treatments to destroy the unhealthy cells and techniques to remove them are successful in preventing progression to cervical cancer.

Each year 470,000 women around the world are diagnosed with the disease and 230,000, mostly in the developing world, die, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France.

Cervical screening, or Pap smear, can detect infection, unhealthy cells or cervical cancer. The illness has a good cure rate if it is discovered and treated early.

Infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) is linked to more than 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. Scientists agree that the best way to tackle the disease is a vaccine to prevent persistent infection with HPV, a sexually transmitted virus, and to combine it with a screening programme.

"Our findings could probably favor the initiation of cervical screening after the age of 25 years with respect to long-term obstetric outcomes," Krygiou added in the analysis.