Written By William Irvin, M.D.
Reproductive cancers affect more than 80,000 women each year in the U.S. and include endometrial, ovarian and cervical cancer.
ENDOMETRIAL CANCER, or uterine cancer, is the most common female reproductive cancer and the fourth most common cancer in women. Most women diagnosed with endometrial cancer are between 50 and 69 years old.
Risk Factors
The greatest risk factor is being overweight or obese.Women who are more than 25 pounds overweight are three times greater risk than women with normal body weight. Those more than 50 pounds overweight are nine times more likely to develop this cancer.
Seventy-five percent of women diagnosed with endometrial cancer are post-menopausal. Other risk factors include a history of irregular or infrequent ovulation, sometimes caused by polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and a genetic predisposition resulting in the condition hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer syndrome.
Symptoms
Because the vast majority of women diagnosed with endometrial cancer are post-menopausal, the most commonly seen symptom is vaginal bleeding after menopause. Consequently, any post-menopausal vaginal bleeding is cause to see a physician. In pre-menopausal women, symptoms include any change in menstrual patterns, such as heavier menstruation, more frequent menstruation or bleeding between periods.
Prevention
Maintaining a healthy body weight will greatly decrease a woman’s risk of developing endometrial cancer. The use of combination oral contraceptives—those that contain both estrogen and progestin—will also reduce a woman’s lifetime risk for developing the disease by approximately 50 percent.
OVARIAN CANCER is the most lethal gynecological cancer and is responsible for more deaths than all other gynecological cancers combined. It is the fifth leading cause of cancer death among women in the United States. Three out of four women diagnosed with ovarian cancer will be in an advanced stage of the disease, and of these, 80 percent will ultimately die from the condition. However, if diagnosed in an early stage, Virginia women with ovarian cancer have a five-year relative survival rate of 93 percent.
Risk Factors
The greatest risk factor for ovarian cancer is a family history of breast or ovarian cancer. Women also have a greater risk of developing the disease if males in their family have had pancreatic, prostate or colon cancer through several generations. Other risk factors include never conceiving children, never breastfeeding and never taking birth control pills.
Symptoms
Ovarian cancer is virtually asymptomatic during the beginning stages of the disease. An effective screening method is not available, making early detection extremely difficult. Ovarian cancer is usually discovered when the affected ovary becomes so large it causes pain or when cancerous cells have already spread and symptoms occur in other areas of the body. These symptoms can include abdominal distention, bloating, increasing abdominal girth, satiety, anorexia, shortness of breath, and pelvic or abdominal pain.
Prevention
Taking birth control pills for three months can lower a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer by 30 to 40 percent. Taking birth control pills for five to eight years can lower a woman’s lifetime risk by 50 to 80 percent. These reductions in cancer risk are maintained up to fifteen years after taking birth control pills.
Women who undergo a tubal ligation, also known as having one’s “tubes tied,” or simple hysterectomy without removal of the ovaries, reduce their risk of ovarian cancer by 30 percent. Cancer risk is also lower in women who take aspirin daily, bear children and breastfeed. Women can also choose to have their ovaries surgically removed.
CERVICAL CANCER is the third most common reproductive cancer. The sole cause of cervical cancer is a sexually transmitted virus known as Human Papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection worldwide. Of the 100 different types of HPV, 40 can affect the lower female reproductive tract. Of these, 13 subtypes have the potential to become malignant, and subtypes 16 and 18 are the most dangerous, accounting for 70 percent of all worldwide invasive cervical cancer cases each year.
Risk Factors
Having intercourse is the greatest risk factor for cervical cancer. Additionally, the more sexual partners a woman has and the earlier she begins intercourse, the greater her risk becomes for developing cervical cancer.
Symptoms
Any abnormal bleeding can be a symptom of cervical cancer, such as bleeding after intercourse, bleeding in between periods or a change in period patterns. Additional symptoms may include pelvic pain or pain during intercourse.
Prevention
The HPV vaccine is extremely effective when given prior to a woman’s exposure to HPV, which means women should receive the vaccine before beginning intercourse. The vaccine protects against the cancer-causing types of the virus (subtypes 16 and 18), as well as Types 6 and 11, which cause 99 percentof all genital warts.
To reduce the risk of contracting HPV, women can maintain monogamous relationships and avoid sexual contact with strangers.