Since the introduction of a test for cervical cancer and the development of a vaccine, rates of that deadly disease have been falling in this country, but not in Southwest Virginia where there’s limited access to medical services. Now, a nursing professor at UVA is testing an approach that could improve the odds for women living in Appalachia.
UVA Nursing Profssor Emma Mitchell has been trying to figure out why rates of cervical cancer are so high in some places – a fact that has frustrated her for years.
“We have a vaccine. We also have tools to screen for cervical cancer, and then beyond that we have good tools to treat cervical cancer when it’s identified,” she explains.
The oldest form of screening, Mitchell says, is a Pap test.
“You need to go to a healthcare provider, collect cervical cells and they’re viewed under a microscope to look for cellular changes which might indicate precancerous or cancerous changes.”
But Mitchell notes there’s another way to watch for cervical cancer – a test for strains of the virus known to cause it.
“With human papillomavirus screening, you’re actually testing for the presence of the virus.”
She did a study in Nicaragua – a country where cervical cancer is seven times more common than in the U.S. and a leading killer of women.
“We worked to screen almost 2,000 women for high risk genotypes of the human papilloma virus.”
The test allowed women to collect the sample themselves and mail it to a lab. About 20% came back positive, and those women were advised to get follow up care. The home test is only approved for use in research here. Mitchell conducted one trial with 45 women in southwest Virginia, where the rate of cervical cancer is much higher than the national average. 17% were positive for high-risk strains of human papillomavirus.
