Cervical Cancer

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS By Rebecca Skloot Crown. 369 pp. $26 WP BOOKSTORE By early 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a mother of five in Baltimore, had suffered for some time from what she described as a painful "knot on my womb. " She sought treatment at Johns Hopkins, a charity hospital and the only one around that treated black patients. The diagnosis: cervical cancer. Before administering radium for the first time, the attending doctor cut two dime-size samples of tissue, one cancerous and one...

CHICAGO — Using cervical fluid collected from routine Pap smears, U.S. researchers were able to spot genetic changes caused by both ovarian and endometrial cancers, offering promise for a new kind of screening test for these deadly cancers. Experts say that although the test has tremendous potential, it is still years from widespread use. But if proven effective with more testing, it would fill a significant void. Currently, there are no tests that can reliably detect either ovarian or...

Two vaccines protect against the virus that can cause cervical cancer: Gardasil, approved in 2006 by the Food and Drug Administration, and Cervarix, approved in 2009. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the vaccines are recommended for girls, usually around age 11 or 12, and for women up to age 26 who didn't get the three doses required for full vaccination when they were younger. In 2009, the FDA also approved Gardasil for boys and men ages 9 to 26 to prevent genital warts.

ON TUESDAY, a federal appeals court lifted a preliminary injunction against a measure that excludes Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas from receiving state funds. In March, Gov. Rick Perry (R) announced that his state would rather forfeit $35 million in annual federal funding for the Women's Health Program — a Medicaid waiver program that provides low-income women with contraceptives and cancer screenings — than see any more state tax dollars go to a supposedly pro-abortion organization.

(HealthDay News) -- A prime cause of cervical cancer is human papillomavirus, which includes more than 30 types that can be transmitted sexually. A Pap test can find changes on the cervix caused by an HPV infection. Here are suggestions on how to protect yourself from cervical cancer, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Get regular Pap tests -- as often as your doctor recommends.Eat a healthy diet that includes plenty of fruits and vegetables that are rich in carotene and vitamins C and E....

TUESDAY, Jan. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Two extra steps may improve the accuracy of cervical cancer screening, a new study claims. A Pap smear is the standard test, but findings in the Jan. 13 online issue of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute call for patients to get human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing first and then again after the Pap smear if they have HPV infections. The study, led by Dr. Joakim Dillner of Lund University in Sweden, found this screening approach improved detection of...

FRIDAY, April 18 (HealthDay News) -- For the first time, a doctor's arsenal now includes a vaccine that can actuallypreventcancer. Gardasil targets human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes virtually all cases of cervical cancer and is present in one in four American women. And health-care providers are beginning to integrate that vaccine into the schedule of other immunizations that children receive during childhood and adolescence. About 13 million doses of the vaccine have been distributed globally since its approval in June...

TUESDAY, Oct. 21 (HealthDay News) -- Combining the use of MRI with a special vaginal coil, doctors can now assess the extent of cervical cancer and make more informed treatment decisions, a new study suggests. "The main use is in women with small cervical cancers, in whom it is necessary to delineate accurately the extent of disease prior to fertility-sparing surgery," explained study author Dr. Nandita deSouza, co-director of the MRI Unit at the Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital, in London.

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 20 (HealthDay News) -- Vaccinating all 12-year-old girls against the virus that causes cervical cancer, along with "catch-up" immunizations of women under the age of 21 and revised screening guidelines, would be cost-effective ways to combat the disease, a new study by Harvard researchers suggests. But this conclusion, published in the Aug. 21 issue of theNew England Journal of Medicine, is based on computer modeling rather than "real world" data, leading some experts, including the authors of a...

FRIDAY, Feb. 15 (HealthDay News) -- High levels of daily stress could explain why some women infected with malignancy-linked types of human papillomavirus (HPV) develop cervical cancer, a new study suggests. Scientists at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia tested 74 women, all diagnosed with cervical dysplasia (precancerous cervical lesions), for an immune response to HPV 16, one of the strains of human papillomavirus thought to be a major cause of cervical cancer. The women also completed a...

S ome 25,000 delegates are gathering in Washington this week for the 2012 International AIDS Conference. This is a moment of exceptional promise. Gains in AIDS treatment are remarkable — and continuing. One of the saddest tragedies in the world is for people to die of HIV/AIDS when lifesaving medicines are available. Just a decade ago, that tragedy was playing out across Africa. Thanks to the generosity of the American people, this is no longer the case today. Through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS...

The number of people with cancer is likely to surge by more than ­­75 percent across the world by 2030, with particularly sharp rises in poor countries as they adopt unhealthy "Westernized" lifestyles, a study said last week. Many developing countries were expected to see a rise in living standards in coming decades, said the paper from the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. But those advances could come at a cost: an increase in breast, prostate and colorectal...

Rachel Gould, 31, who had been a program analyst with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, died of cervical cancer March 28 at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington County. The death was confirmed by her sister, Jessica Banov. Mrs. Gould had been employed at HHS since 2004. Since 2007, she had been a program analyst within the Administration for Children and Families' office of legislative affairs and budget. Before joining HHS, she was a fellow at the Institute for Youth, Education and Families at the National...

"I didn't make that claim, nor did I make that statement. Immediately after the debate, a mother came up to me, and she was visibly shaken and heartbroken because of what her daughter had gone through, and so I only related what her story was. " — Michele Bachmann, Sept. 22 Of all the candidates seeking the GOP presidential nomination, Rep. Michele Bachmann (Minn.) has earned the most four-Pinocchio ratings . She has a tendency to shoot from the hip and repeat statements even after they have been proved incorrect.

Several years ago, during an annual mammogram, my wife, who is in her 40s, was told a mass had been found in one of her breasts. Anxious and uncertain, she had a biopsy, and we braced for the worst. My father-in-law, when in his 50s, went through a similarly harrowing experience when a prostate specific antigen (PSA) test given during a routine physical exam came out positive, and he underwent a prostate biopsy.  Fortunately, both my wife and father-in-law were found to be...

Boys should routinely be vaccinated against the sexually transmitted human papillomavirus (HPV) at age 11 or 12 to protect them against genital warts and certain cancers and to reduce the chances that they will spread the virus, a federal advisory panel recommended Tuesday. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which helps set standards for childhood and other vaccinations, voted overwhelmingly to bring the recommendation for boys in line with that for girls. The vote was 13 in favor and none...

Who: Maria Castner, associate general counsel, and Sean Augerson, vice president of North America operations and chairman of the company's Americas Management Council. Company: Qiagen. Charitable giving highlights: Qiagencares program primarily donates HPV tests. Qiagen's local philanthropy partners with nonprofits including the Maryland Hunger Solution Group, Habitat for Humanity, American Cancer Society, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Maryland Science Olympiad.

Dear Carolyn: I am so lost right now, maybe more mad and disappointed at my granddaughter, whom I raised since she was less than a year old and is now 16. [As part of a larger conversation] I asked her if she had sex, and she just rolled over and said yes. I asked why, and she replied, "We were in the moment at his house and it happened. " I did not know what to do and just went for a drive, then went to work and tried to sort things out. I have built up anger inside me, thinking, what did I do?