Misdiagnosis of Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer affects the women's lower part of the uterus or cervix.  Every year over 11,000 women in the U.S. are diagnosed with this cancer.  If it is diagnosed early, treatment can be successful.  On the other hand, a misdiagnosis can result in delayed treatment.  Without the proper treatment, the survival rate decreases considerably and it may lead to death.

There are medical attorneys that will represent victims who had a misdiagnosis of with cancer.  Speak with an attorney regarding the claim; they will evaluate your case free of charge.

How Cervical Cancer Is Diagnosed

Sexually active women should go have regular Pap smears.  While Pap smears are not a diagnostic test, they are used to spot abnormal cells.  If abnormal cells are present, further tests should be ordered to make a positive diagnosis.  Some diagnostic tests include:

• Colposcopy - an instrument called a colposcope is used to look at the cervix and see more clearly areas of abnormal cell growth
• Biopsy - a sample of abnormal tissue is taken from the cervix for testing
• Endocervical scraping - a specialized instrument is used to scrape tissue lining the endocervical canal, an area the doctor cannot reach with the colposcope
• Cone biopsy - a cone-shaped piece of tissue is removed from the cervix

Not overseeing diagnostic tests or misinterpreting the results can put off successful treatment options and the consequences can be fatal.

How Misdiagnosis Occurs

A missed or wrong diagnosis of cervical cancer may occur for the following reasons:

• The doctor fails to recognize symptoms of cervical cancer, thereby failing to perform the tests necessary for diagnosis
• The doctor fails to obtain a full patient history, which is important for identifying risk factors such as Human Papilloma Virus (HPV)
• Lab results are misinterpreted
• A laboratory error causes the patient's results to be confused with another patient's

There are many types of misdiagnosis.  Delayed diagnosis, missed diagnosis and wrong diagnosis can each have their own consequence.  For instance, a wrong diagnosis of cancer when a patient does not have it can mean a person undergoing treatments that are not needed.  In addition, if cancer was missed, a patient will not receive treatment they actually need to live.

Have You Been Misdiagnosed?

If you were misdiagnosed with cervical cancer, there is legal action you can take and with the help of a medical attorney, it can happen.  The negligent party can be held liable and a victim can recover some compensation for damages lost.  This can include lost wages, treatment costs, pain, and suffering.

Contact an attorney to learn more about your legal rights if you have received a misdiagnosis of cervical cancer.  They will evaluate your case at no cost and advise you of your rights.

Learn About Factors That Can Affect Cervical Cancer Prognosis

Once someone has been diagnosed with cervical cancer, they often wonder (along with treatment options, recovery time, and lifestyle changes) what their prognosis or their chance of recovery is and how long they will live.

This is a fair question and cervical cancer prognosis depends on a number of different things such as:

- The stage of the cancer (whether it affects part of the cervix, involves the whole cervix, or has spread to the lymph nodes or other places in the body).
- The type of cervical cancer.
- The size of the tumor.

Treatment options depend on the following:

- The stage of the cancer.
- The size of the tumor.
- The patient's desire to have children.
- The patient's age.

What if you are pregnant and are diagnosed with cervical cancer?

Treatment of cervical cancer during pregnancy depends on the stage of the cancer and the stage of the pregnancy. For cervical cancer found early or for cancer found during the last trimester of pregnancy, treatment may be delayed until after the baby is born. 

I hope you got lots of value from this article, as I definitely did try to provide it. As this article has been informative, it is your job to do further research and educate yourself.

Cancer is horrible, as we all know - but there is a good way and a bad way of dealing with it and getting past it. The better your attitude and knowledge, the better off you will be.

Three Important Things to Know About Cervical Cancer

As you may be aware, the links between HPV and cervical cancer were actually hypothesized decades ago. At that time, women had very few choices with this virus when it came to avoiding infection. Fortunately, modern women can easily take advantage of immunizations, as well as early detection methods for cervical cancer. This is especially important to consider for girls who have not yet become sexually active, as well as older women who want to avoid cervical cancer.

Avoiding and Preventing HPV

Even though you may want your children to grow up and raise families of their own, it will always be a struggle to come to terms with accepting this stage of development. On the other hand, a number of people start out in life without considering the fact that they may wind up in a relationship where one, or both, partners have past sexual experiences with other people. Under these circumstances, it becomes virtually impossible to prevent the spread of HPV from one person to another. While you may not like the moral implications of these issues, you still need to consider the long term health consequences. At the very least, if you have daughters in their teen years, you should seriously consider letting them decide whether, or not, they want the HPV vaccine.

Contraceptives, Early Detection, and Cervical Cancer

Many women who use birth control pills end up thinking that their partners no longer needs to use a condom. No matter how much you may want to trust your partner, this can easily leave you vulnerable to HPV; right along with any other STD's that your partner may pick up from someone else. In a similar way, if you use a diaphragm, IUD, or other birth control methods that do not prevent the flow of bodily fluids, you will always be at risk from HPV. Needless to say, the situation becomes even more complicated if you decide to have children with your partner.

If you find yourself in a situation where condom usage is not possible, you should always ensure that you stay up- to- date on pap smears and other forms of cervical cancer testing. It is also very important to stay informed about newer testing methods, as well as the signs and symptoms of cervical cancer. As may be expected, if you have genital warts, you may want to have pap smears done more often.

Cervical Cancer Treatments

As with many other cancers, prevention, early detection, and viable treatment methods can easily cause a significant reduction in suffering and death. These are just one of many reasons why it is so important to consider all of your options, before you agree to a specific treatment method. For example, you should always keep abreast of newer drugs that are being released on an experimental basis, as well as therapies that include diet modification and other lifestyle changes.

If you are afraid of a cancer diagnosis, it is important to talk to people who have it, and are undergoing treatment. Many will tell you that cancer does not change their lives for the worse. You will find many brave people who open themselves to life and experience things that they never thought they would. In many cases, they find a level of personal satisfaction that they never had before. Contrary to popular belief, life does not end when you are diagnosed with cancer. For some, it is when their life truly begins.

What You Should Know About Cervical Cancer

Cervical cancer is the second most common malignancy in women worldwide, and it remains a leading cause of cancer-related death for women in developing countries.The condition usually affects women of middle age or older, but it may be diagnosed in any reproductive-aged woman. Cervical tumors are classified as either preinvasive where the lower third of the epithelium contains abnormal cells, or invasive in which the full thickness of the epithelium contains abnormally proliferating cells.

Cervical cancer develops in the lining of the cervix, the lower part of the uterus (womb) that enters the vagina. These cancers don't always spread, but those that do most often spread to the lungs, the liver, the bladder, the vagina, and/or the rectum.

Cause

Cervical cancer almost always develops from cell changes caused by the human papilloma virus (HPV), which is spread through genital skin-to-skin contact during sexual activity. It also seems more prevalent in women who smoke. Sexual activity that increases the risk for infection with HPV and HIV and for cervical cancer includes the following: Having multiple sexual partners or having sex with a promiscuous partner, a history of sexually transmitted disease, sexual intercourse at a young age.

Signs and Symptoms

The early stages may be completely asymptomatic. Symptoms of advanced cancer may include: loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, pelvic pain, back pain, leg pain, a single swollen leg, heavy bleeding from the vagina, leaking of urine or feces from the vagina and bone fractures.

Diagnosis

The Papanicolaou (Pap) smear test has been used to screen for pre-cancerous lesions in asymptomatic women for the past 50 years. While the pap smear is an effective screening test, confirmation of the diagnosis of cervical cancer or pre-cancer requires a biopsy of the cervix. Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, the precursor to cervical cancer, is often diagnosed on examination of cervical biopsies by a pathologist.

Other Risk Factors

Women with diets low in fruits and vegetables may be at increased risk. Research suggests that the risk of cervical cancer goes up the longer a woman takes oral contraceptives, but the risk goes back down again after the OCs are stopped. Women who have had many full term pregnancies have an increased risk of developing cervical cancer.

Prevention

Cervical cancer is the easiest female cancer to prevent, because there is a vaccine and a screening test available. The vaccine known as Gardasil offers protection from the most dangerous types of HPV and recently published results indicate that new cervical tumors may eventually be reduced by as much as 97% in those areas where vaccination is introduced and maintained.

Treatment

Treatment of cervical cancer depends on the stage of the cancer, the size and shape of the tumor, the age and general health of the woman, and her desire to have children in the future. Appropriate treatment also depends on accurate clinical staging. Preinvasive stages may be treated total excisional biopsy, cryosurgery or laser destruction. Invasive squamous cell carcinoma therapy may include hysterectomy and radiation therapy.

Internal radiation therapy uses a device filled with radioactive material, which is placed inside the woman's vagina next to the cervical cancer. Some of the drugs used for chemotherapy for cervical cancer include 5-FU, Cisplatin, Carboplatin, Ifosfamide, Paclitaxel, and Cyclophosphamide.

Thirty-five percent of patients with invasive cervical cancer have persistent or recurrent disease after treatment. Recurrent cervical cancer detected at its earliest stages might be successfully treated with surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, or a combination of the three. Interestingly a number of patients have reported considerable benefit from using Lifewave acupuncture patches for pain relief and general health.

Survival

The chance of being alive in 5 years for cancer that has spread to the inside of the cervix walls but not outside the cervix area is 92%. However, the 5-year survival rate falls steadily as the cancer spreads into other areas. Recently, the combined use of cisplatin and topotecan was shown to significantly improve survival compared with single-agent cisplatin. If you combine all the stages together, the five-year survival rate is about 73%.

As the cancer metastasizes to other parts of the body, prognosis drops dramatically because treatment of local lesions is generally more effective than whole body treatments such as chemotherapy.

What Women Should Know About Cervical Cancer & HPV

Cervical cancer is a malignant cancer tissue that attack cervix (organ connecting the uterus and vagina). There are some types of this cancer. The most common types, the SCC (squalors cell carcinoma), a major cause of cervical cancer with the percentage of 80-85 percent. HPV infection is a "trigger" major in the development of this cancer.

Other types of this cancer, like adenokarsinoma, small cell carcinoma, adenosquamos, adenosarcoma, melanoma, and lymphoma, a type of cervical cancer is rarer and generally not associated with HPV. Various types of cervical cancer this last can not be prevented, such as SCC.

Signs and Symptoms

Early stage cervical cancer are asymptomatic.

Advanced cervical cancer showed symptoms of vaginal bleeding, back pain, urinary symptoms such as dyisuria (painful or difficult urination) and cloudy urine, and digestive disorders such as chronic constipation and tenemus (still feel a lump, although it has a bowel movement).

In addition, pain-is when sexual intercourse and vaginal discharge is also a symptom of advanced cervical cancer. Less common symptoms include loss of appetite, weight loss, fatigue, leg pain, leg swelling, and leaking urine or feces from the vagina.

Carcinoma in Situ (CIS or CIN)

Pap smear can identify carcinoma in situ (CIN) in cervical, and treatment can prevent cancer development. CIN is a cluster of pre-malignant cells is still the "in situ" or "in place" and did not move from its initial position and not spread to other parts of the body. Thankfully, in Singapore and other developed countries, the use of cervical scanning program has reduced the number of invasive cervical cancer sufferers.

Women are encouraged to perform a Pap smear once a year since their first sexual intercourse and continued until they were aged about 70 years. If two to three years Pap smear results are normal results, women may decide to reduce the frequency to two to three years. However, high-risk women (see below) are encouraged to continue it every year.

Not all women with HPV infection to patients with CIN, and not all women with CIN to cervical cancer sufferers. Many HPV infections disappear quickly countered by the immune system, just like any other infection.

However, certain types of HPV in the cervix tend to settle for a few years, genetic change cells making the cervix, and causes dysplasia (abnormal cell growth). If not treated immediately, severe dysplasia can and usually will develop into invasive cervical cancer.

CIN usually do not show any symptoms. This is a good time to scan the treatment of cancer because it was nearly always result in complete recovery.

People at Risk

All women who engaged in risky sexual be cervical cancer sufferers. However, women who have many male friends to have sex (or her male friend had been having a lot of female friends for sex) higher risk. Women who began having sexual intercourse before age 16 without a safety in the highest risk.

Has developed an effective vaccine against HPV types cause 70-85% of all cervical cancers.

HPV vaccine is for girls and women aged 9-26 years because the vaccine only works if given before infection occurs. However, this vaccine can be given to women remains a rather late start of sexual activity. Prices are expensive vaccines sometimes cause reluctance. However, because this vaccine only covers for certain high-risk HPV types, women have Pap smears regularly, even after vaccination.

Diagnosis

Although the Pap smear test is an effective scanning of this cancer, confirming the diagnosis of cervical cancer or pre-cervical cancer requires a biopsy. This is often done through colposcopy, a visual examination of the cervix with a magnifying tool, assisted acid solution to highlight abnormal cells on the surface of the cervix. This is an outpatient procedure for 15 minutes and not causes pain.

Further diagnostic procedures include LEEP (Loop Electrical Excision Procedure), cone biopsy (cone biopsies), and punch biopsies.

Stadium and Treatment

Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) cervical cancer classifications based on scanning into CIN I to CIN III, with CIN III is the direct precursor to cervical cancer. On top of CIN III, meaning has been transformed into cancer cells, and will be classified from stage 0 (cancer confined to the area of skin) to 4B (a relative had spread far).

An early-stage patients can be treated with conservative surgery for women who want to maintain fertility, whereas other patients are usually advised to remove the entire uterus and cervix (trachelectomy). Generally recommended to wait at least one year prior to seeking pregnancy after surgery. Because of the possibility of cancer spread to lymph nodes (lymph node) in a late-stage cancer, the surgeon may also need to lift from the lymph nodes around the uterus for pathologic evaluation.

This cancer is very rare residual cancer has relapsed again if cleaned with the trachelectomy. However, it is recommended for patients to make prevention and treatment continued, including scanning Pap (Pap smear).

Early stage tumors can be treated with radical hysterectomy (removal of uterus) with removal of lymph nodes. Radiation therapy with or without chemotherapy can be given after surgery to reduce the risk of relapse. Early stage tumors can be treated with large radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Furthermore, hysterectomy can be performed for local cancer control them better.

Advanced tumors (stage 2B to 4B) should be treated with combination chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Survival

With treatment, survival rates of cervical cancer patients after 5 years was 92% for the earliest stages, 80-90% for stage 1 cancer and 50-65% for stage 2. Only 25-35 percent for women with stage 3, and less than 15 percent of fourth stage cervical cancer patients are alive after five years. Therefore, the scanning / screening and early detection of cervical cancer is very important.

Visit the doctor immediately if you experience the following symptoms:

• Vaginal bleeding
• Back pain
• Pain when urinating or difficult urination and cloudy urine
• Constipation cronies and felt a lump, although defecation
• Ill-being when having sexual intercourse and vaginal discharge
• Swollen feet
• Leaking urine or feces from the vagina