Guest opinion: Let’s eradicate cervical cancer once and for all

This is a guest opinion column

Now, more than ever, we have the ability to protect women from cervical cancer. Even in the middle of a pandemic, this is cause for celebration, because eliminating the threat could save the lives of more than 4,000 women in the United States each year.

We are proud to say that a safe and effective vaccine given to adolescent girls and boys can prevent infection from HPV, the virus responsible for 99 percent of cervical cancer cases. This groundbreaking vaccine, when widely used, has the power to break the chain of cervical cancer and five other cancers linked to HPV in men and women.

We need only look to Australia for evidence that the strategy works. Australia is on track to become the first country to achieve a goal of near zero cases of cervical cancer thanks to a national commitment in an HPV vaccination campaign and cervical cancer screening. Australia was the first to introduce a national publicly funded HPV vaccination program in 2007. It went on to introduce HPV vaccination for adolescent boys in 2013, and five years later adopted a next-generation vaccine for HPV to prevent even more related cancers.

In the U.S., we have certainly made progress. We are vaccinating more adolescents against HPV, especially as recommended by pediatricians during routine adolescent immunization. As a result, we have seen a significant reduction in HPV and abnormal pap tests among females in the first generation fortunate enough to get the vaccine. Seeing significant reduction in cancer rates will take another 10 to 20 years but research shows this to be true in countries that conducted the first vaccine trials.

For more vulnerable women, the Pap test helps us identify cervical cancer and precancer early so we can treat them before they spread. The addition of an HPV test is now a game changer. It helps us identify cancer and precancer earlier and better. Every woman should know her HPV status. This helps us to determine what is the best follow-up strategy for you personally – one, three or five years, depending on your individual risk and history.

Across the state, outreach programs are reaching women in underserved areas. The Alabama Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program provides free breast and cervical cancer screenings for women who meet eligibility guidelines. An organization called Go Doc Go has partnered with USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute and Ash Wellness to provide at-home HPV test kits targeting women who wouldn’t get screened otherwise or who haven’t been screened in more than five years.

For women with cervical cancer, we have new and better therapies to offer, fueled by clinical trials. Recent advances include immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s natural defenses to attack cancer, and targeted therapy, which targets specific genes, proteins or the tissue environment to block cancer growth. Even when cervical cancer becomes advanced, we now can attack it with new combinations of these new drugs with chemo and radiation.

We should be proud of this progress, but we must do more to get the word out.

It is heartbreaking to have to break the news to a young mother that her fertility or her life is in jeopardy because of a disease that could have been prevented. It is even more heartbreaking to lose someone in the prime of life, leaving a giant void in their family.

I continue to be hopeful about where we are headed. I invite you to join me as we spread the word about cervical cancer awareness and prevention during January, which is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month. Please see that the young people in your life are vaccinated against HPV and that the women in your life get screened and follow up on any abnormal results.

Together, we can beat this disease.

Jennifer Young Pierce, M.D., M.P.H., is professor and Gynecologic Oncology Program leader, Cancer Control and Prevention at USA Health Mitchell Cancer Institute