The main gynecological cancers include uterine cancer which is the most prevalent ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, and vaginal cancer. Signs and symptoms of each cancer can vary somewhat. In this article, We have Dr. Sandeep Nayak who is one of the best oncologist in India. He will be explaining the causes of different gynecological cancers. On the other hand, we have Dr. Anu Sidana who is one of the best gynecologist in Gurgaon. She will be explaining the symptoms of different gynecological cancers. Our specialists are also listed in ClinicSpots which is a very popular name in the medical tourism industry.
Table of Contents
Uterine Cancer:
For uterine cancer, the most common symptom is bleeding. Bleeding that’s abnormal usually after menopause or bleeding which is abnormal sometimes in pre-menopause women who have not yet had menopause as they have certain risk factors.
Cervical Cancer:
The most common symptoms of cervical cancer include bleeding but more commonly for women who go in for their pap smear screening and abnormality and their pap smear which leads to the diagnosis of cervical cancer.
Ovarian Cancer:
For ovarian cancer, there are a lot of subtle signs and symptoms and it’s kind of known as the disease that whispers. There are many of the same symptoms that you might have that don’t represent cancer such as bloating early, fullness when you eat gaining a little weight in the waistline, some cramping, constipation, etc. When that happens it’s important to try to differentiate the difference between cancer or what’s much more common non-cancer.
Causes of Gynecological Cancers:
Well, thanks to the advancement in medical science we are coming to a better point of understanding of what causes many types of gynecologic cancers.
Uterine Cancer:
For uterine cancer one of the strongest risk factors is actually being overweight. So a woman who’s more than 50 pounds can increase her risk of uterine cancer by up to ten percent and that’s about three times higher than just taking unopposed estrogens if you have a uterus. For other women, there may be a risk factor of some types of hereditary genetic problems. The most common one being something called hereditary nonpolyposis cancer syndrome. These women have a high chance of having endometrial cancer which may be up to 80% along with colon cancer and some types of ovarian cancer.
Ovarian Cancer:
Ovarian cancer is usually caused by a lifetime of a lot of ovulatory cycles. So the more ovulations a woman has in her lifetime the more likely it is to develop ovarian cancer. Now the things that increase ovulations are fewer children, a longer time of menses. In other words early onset of menarche at an early age or late menopause. The absence of the use of birth control pills the absence of breastfeeding those things contributes to that. There’s a small set of women about 1 in 10 that have some sort of hereditary gene that puts them at higher risk of developing ovarian cancer and that risk can range anywhere between 20 to 40 percent depending on the exact genetic risk. This is typically known as BRCA hereditary type cancers.
Cervical Cancer:
For other cancers like cervical cancer, we know that most of these are related to a virus called human papilloma virus and there are many different types of this virus. But some of them can be more apt to cause dysplastic changes which are precancerous growth and actual invasive cancers. So typically this is dealt with by screening for this in trying to prevent cancers from developing in women.
Diagnosis:
Well, the best screening option is just to maintain your regular gynecologic healthy exams. So there are good guidelines now on how women should be followed with pap smears for cervical cancer, the follow-up that should happen with abnormal pap smears, and women who are going in and having regular gynecologic care should be evaluated for abnormal bleeding symptoms or for problems during the menopause which might signify some sort of risk factor. Unfortunately for ovarian cancer, we do not yet have a good screening test. There are some screening but with limited knowledge about the actual success of doing so. There are other options for these women’s such as preventive measures that we can use or that we do know the effectiveness of.
What To Do?
One of the things often overlooked by many patients when they’re getting care is to consider the opportunity for clinical studies. One thing we know is that not all cancers are the same, not all patients are the same, not everybody responds the same way to treatment. By defining what makes these cancers different there are ways to target the specific cancers and individualize treatment for patients.
With any illness that you’re diagnosed with it’s always best to see a specialist who deals with that from the very first and the reason why is it’s easier to deal with things correctly the first time than it is to try to repair or try to recover from treatment which may not have been optimal in the first place. For gynecologic cancers, the obvious choice is either a gynecologist or an oncologist as their subspecialty training just specifically focuses on these types of cancers. You should seek out that opinion early in the course when there’s a suspicion that you may have gynecologic cancer.
