SUDBURY – National Cervical Awareness Week is upon us, and a Sudbury doctor says regular screening can save lives.
Dr. Jennifer Jocko oversees the regional program in northeastern Ontario and says detecting abnormal cells, which can be treated, can prevent cancer from developing.
A Pap test takes 30 seconds and is recommended once every three years from the ages of 21-69.
"Cervical cancer screening is an important health issue, unfortunately a lot of women are still dying from cervical cancer when they don't need to be… a lot of women feel very uncomfortable because it's a very private area, but just remembering that this is a tool to help identify pre-cancer of the cervix and it saves lives," explained Jocko.
She says cervical screening is also recommended for transgender men and gender non-binary people.
"I do believe that there is awareness, the challenge is transferring that awareness into action and going ahead and having the screening done, or feeling that you have a health care practitioner that you feel comfortable enough to have a pap smear performed," she continued.
This week is dedicated to raising awareness about the benefits of the screening.
"One of the main causes of cervical cancer is human papillomavirus, we know so much more now about HPV, there are over 100 different types of HPV, only of which about 14 or so actually cause cervical cancer and it can be identified in a pap smear simply by an abnormal pop," says Jocko.
Dr. Jocko adds that HPV infections and these early cell changes usually cause no symptoms and can go undetected without screening.
