New screening guidelines put people at risk
Approximately 1,550 Canadians are diagnosed with cervical cancer each year. If you look at this from a statistical perspective, this means that at least 46 people will develop the disease each year without HPV being the cause. On the higher end, that number is 124.
Of course, this is all based on averages, so those numbers aren’t exact, but the point is that none of these values are 0.
In the grand scheme of things, people can say this isn’t many cases or people. But try telling that to that one person who has terminal stage four cervical cancer because he wasn’t diagnosed with it before. The fact is that even one missed cancer diagnosis is too many.
It wouldn’t be that big of a deal to switch to guidelines that completely ignore non-HPV related cancers when the symptoms of cervical cancer are screaming, but they don’t. They’re barely a whisper.
For example, when cells become pre-cancerous, that is the prime time to contract the disease. They can be removed and the cancer never develops. But those changes don’t cause any symptoms at all.
Now the disease progresses, the cells multiply and the person now has stage 1 cervical cancer. Their symptoms? Non-existent, for the most part. If they occur, they are non-specific in nature.
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