Rates of late-stage cervical cancer among Black and white women are on the rise, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer.
Written by researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, the study looked at the information of 29,715 women gathered by the United States Cancer Statistics program from the years 2001 to 2018.
During this span of time, white women, specifically those from the South between the ages of 40 and 44, had the sharpest increase in advanced cervical cancer rates, recording an annual increase of 4.5%. Black women also recorded an increase of 0.67% annually.
Despite the higher increase amongst white women, overall, this specific type of cancer was found mostly amongst Black women. Per every group of 100,000 Black women, the incidence rate for advanced cervical cancer was found to be at 1.55 while it was at 0.92 for every 100,000 white women.
“This highlights how important it is for everyone to have access to routine health care and be able to access recommended screening tests, and how even in young, otherwise healthy women, pap screening is very important and can save lives,” Dr. Alex Francoeur, one of the study authors, said per CNN. “I suspect that with reduced access to health care during the Covid-19 pandemic, we may even see continued worsening of these trends.”
In order to lower the rates of advanced cervical cancer amongst all groups, the researchers also recommended working towards increasing the rates of administration of the Human Papillomavirus vaccine, otherwise known more simply as the HPV vaccine.
Using information from TeenVaxView, they looked at the current trends in HPV vaccination rates. Looking at the information of all racial and ethnic groups, Black teenagers had the second highest HPV vaccination rate despite making up most of the overall advanced cervical cancer patients; between the ages of 13 and 17, 74.6% of Black teenagers were administered the vaccine.
The number was considerably larger than the number of white teenagers who were administered the vaccine as only 66.1% of white girls between the ages of 13 and 17 were vaccinated. The researchers cite safety concerns and inappropriate age as reasons given by white parents for their refusal to vaccinate their children against HPV.
“We know that cervical cancer in today’s day and age, with primary prevention with vaccination and secondary prevention with pap-based or HPV-based testing will essentially eliminate cervical cancer, we have the tools right now to eliminate cervical cancer,” said Rutgers New Jersey Medical School’s chair of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Women’s Health, Dr. Mark Einstein, per CNN.
“But, what this data has shown is that when we’re not following those screening guidelines, or people aren’t getting screened enough, or people aren’t getting vaccinations, that we’re going to actually miss some of these windows of opportunity to pick up these cancers.”
