Maintaining proper hygiene can help to reduce the risk of cervical cancer

Keeping the vaginal area clean can help to reduce the risk of cervical cancer to an extent.

Cervical cancer is caused due to HPV or human papillomavirus. The best way to prevent this cancer is to get vaccinated. The HPV vaccine is known to be the best way to prevent cervical cancer. According to the data released in 2017 by the HPV centre every year 122844 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer and 67477 dies from the disease. Cervical cancer ranks as the 2nd most frequent cancer among women in India and the 2nd most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years of age.

HPV is a group of more than 200 viruses and among them; at least 40 types of HPV can be spread by skin-to-skin contact. They can either spread through sexual intercourse or from the skin and mucous membrane of the infected person. But mostly an HPV infection is passed through sexual intercourse vaginal, oral or anal. However, HPV 16 and 18 are the stains that are responsible for causing cervical cancer. The most common cause of cervical cancer is having unprotected sex, multiple sexual partners or experiencing a sexual intercourse at a very early age. Read to know if condoms can prevent an HPV infection.

However, keeping the vaginal area clean can help to reduce the risk of cervical cancer. It might not be able to prevent cancer completely but proper hygiene practices can definitely reduce the chances of getting infected with the virus. This not only means keeping the area clean but also maintaining good sexual hygiene. For women, it is necessary to insist the partner to wear a condom while having intercourse. But condom cannot give total protection from HPV. If there are warts and lesions in the area (infected by HPV) that are not covered by the condom and if they come in contact with any parts of the woman it can still spread the infection. Still, condom during sex is necessary. It is necessary to clean the area after sex wipe the vagina with a clean cloth or vaginal wipes from back to front to make sure that virus doesn t stay in the area.

In fact, a breast and cervical cancer screening camp help at Cooper Corporation and Onco-Life, a Cancer Centre, Shendre, Satara had seen that of the 1500 women who attended the camp around 14 percent were detected to have either breast cancer or cervical cancer. The doctors at the camp came to the conclusion that most of the cervical cancer detected in Pap smear was due to lack of hygiene. So, maintaining proper hygiene helps to keep cancer at bay.

But this is not to say that you can skip the cervical cancer vaccination and maintain proper hygiene to prevent an HPV infection or avoid going for screening. In fact, regular screening can help one detect the infection early and get treated for the same. It is necessary that woman should watch out for symptoms like abnormal bleeding, unusual heavy discharge, pelvic pain, pain during urination and unexpected bleeding as the possible signs of the cervical cancer diagnosis. Women at 65 and above years of age should definitely undergo screening, if they haven t been screened since the age of 50 years or if they recently had abnormal tests. As the risk of cervical cancer is very low in women who have never had sex and maintain good hygiene quotient, women in this category may opt not to have cervical screening. Apart from this, maintaining proper hygiene can also help to reduce incidences of cervical cancer.

Image source: Shutterstock