Women’s health centre

Understanding cervical cancer: The basics

What is cervical cancer?

Cervical cancer is cancer of the cervix, the narrow neck at the lower end of a woman’s uterus, just above the vagina (see below). The cervix connects the uterus to the vagina.

Approximately eight out of 10 cervical cancers originate in surface cells lining the cervix (squamous cell carcinomas). These cancers do not form suddenly. In some women, healthy cervical cells start to show abnormal growth - this is called dysplasia. Although these cells are not cancerous, they can become so.

When dysplastic cells turn cancerous (malignant), the first detectable stage is carcinoma in situ (CIS), which is non-invasive cervical cancer. As cancer cells multiply, some may invade the lining of the cervix itself, spread to nearby tissue, enter the bloodstream or lymphatic system and spread to other parts of the body.

Just as it usually takes many years for dysplasia to become carcinoma in situ, it often takes months or even years for cervical cancer to become invasive - although this progression may be faster in women with HIV. As the disease is normally slow to progress and can be picked up by the highly effective and widely available cervical screening smear test, cervical cancer is one of the least threatening forms of cancer and is usually easy to diagnose at pre-cancerous stages. Cervical screening saves thousands of lives each year, according to the Department of Health. When caught early, cervical cancer is curable.

Even including the advanced stages of cervical cancer, according to the NHS more than 90% of women with stage one cervical cancer will live at least five years after receiving a diagnosis and around 1 in 3 people with the more advanced type of cervical cancer will live at least five years.' Cancer Research UK the overall chance of surviving at least five years is around 64%.

According to Cancer Research UK, 2,828 new cases of cervical cancer were diagnosed in the UK in 2007, making up just one per cent of all newly diagnosed cancers. In 2008 there were 957 deaths from cervical cancer in the UK, that’s fewer than three per 100,000 women. The death rate is about 70 per cent lower than 30 years ago. Much of this is due to the smear test, which provides a means of sampling cells on the surface of the cervix and detecting any early abnormal changes. In countries where the smear test is not regularly used, cervical cancer is a more common cause of death.

What causes cervical cancer?

Doctors are getting closer to understanding the underlying causes of cervical cancer and have identified a number of factors that put you at higher risk of developing the disease.

HPV: the most important risk factor for cervical cancer is infection with a sexually transmitted infection called human papillomavirus (HPV).