Preventing Cervical Cancer: The Importance of HPV Vaccines and Early Detection

Preventing cervical cancer begins in childhood

• Girls and adolescents, between 10 and 13 years old, must have the HPV vaccine; This virus causes 99 percent of cases: David Isla Ortiz

Every sexually active woman 25 years of age should undergo a cervical cytology test, and those 35 and older should undergo a human papillomavirus (HPV) test by PCR (Polymerse Chain Reaction); The high-risk serotypes are 16 and 18, which cause more than 80 percent of cervical cancer, she reported.

The specialist in Oncological Surgery from the UNAM commented: although HPV is what causes 99 percent of this cancer, there are internal factors that contribute to its development, for example nutritional status, smoking, alcoholism, immune status and others. causes such as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, so prevention can also consist of three fundamental measures such as physical activity, weight control and a balanced diet.

The World Health Organization (WHO) established a strategy to reduce or eradicate the number of cases of cervical cancer called the 90-70-90 measure, which proposes “90 percent vaccination coverage, in addition to 70 percent of women screened with high-quality tests, and 90 percent of diagnosed cancers treated in a timely manner,” he explained.

In an interview, he commented that at INCan – with which UNAM has academic collaboration – they attend, on average, 400 cases per year, of which only approximately 15 percent arrive in the early stage, the rest in the advanced local phase. Therefore, discovering its presence in a timely manner is essential in order to explore and treat it, hence the importance of vaccination.

According to the WHO, HPVs are a group of related viruses, of which around 220 are known. They can cause warts on different parts of the body, around 40 affect the genitals, they are spread through sexual contact with a infected person and lead to the development of cancer.

The people who have received the 0.5 milliliter vaccination doses intramuscularly are girls in fifth and sixth grades of primary school, first year of secondary school, as well as 11, 12 and 13 years old, even if they do not attend any school institution.

David Isla reiterated that the biological helps reduce the incidence of infection in women, mainly in those who have not yet started their sexual life, and reduce the risk of cancer.

It is about 90 percent of school-age girls or young people receiving an HPV vaccine, we are talking about two doses, that is the most important strategy. The second is that 70 percent of women be examined with vaginal cytology tests (according to international standards after the age of 21; in Mexico the NOM indicates that it be after the age of 25), and detection of the virus, he indicated.

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2023-12-23 14:04:16
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