Dear ladies and gentlemen,
This month is cancer awareness month…
I had the opportunity to speak at the cancer awareness meeting jointly organized by Afyon Medical Chamber and Afyon Businesswomen's Association. I would like to make a small compilation for those who could not come and remind us how important cancer screenings are for our health.
The American Cancer Society published a very good guide about cancer screenings in August 2019.
According to this guide, women have the chance to start breast cancer screening between the ages of 40-44. They should start screening at the age of 45 at the latest and have mammography checks every year. After the age of 55, this control frequency may decrease to every 2 years, but it is beneficial to continue it throughout life.
Cervical cancer is a disease that progresses very slowly and develops due to infection with the unpleasant microbe we call HPV. type. Of course, not every HPV infection progresses to cancer. However, factors such as the type of HPV, long-term infections, problems in the person's immune system, age, and smoking can trigger this simple infection to turn into a potentially fatal cancer.
Fortunately, we can now detect cervical cancer very early and easily treat it with laser burning or freezing. That's why it is very important to have a smear test every 3 years or an HPV DNA test every 5 years.
Uterine cancer can be diagnosed very early. 75% of the patients are women in menopause, and the earliest symptom is bleeding. Although not all bleeding is cancer, it still deserves investigation. That's why it is very important for every woman who is bleeding to consult a doctor. The remaining 25% of the patients are patients who have not yet entered menopause. For them, the excessive amount of bleeding or intermittent bleeding should alarm us.
We can be protected from cancers that can be detected early with these simple scans.
I wish you healthy days…
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