An exploration into the quality of life of women treated for cervical cancer

Background: Cervical cancer mainly occurs among women from the developing world, and women face unique challenges in terms of their disease and treatment. Most women present with advanced cervical cancer and receive the standard curative treatment with external beam radiotherapy and brachytherapy with or without chemotherapy. Objectives: To describe the quality of life (QOL) of women treated for cervical cancer during treatment (M0), at 6 months after completing treatment (M6) and at 12 months after treatment (M12).Methods: A cross-sectional design, calculated sample size (n = 153) and convenience sampling were used. Data were collected through structured interviews, and the EORTC QLQ-C30 and EORTC QLQ CX24 served as data collection instruments. Descriptive statistics were used to analyse the data, and the Kruskal­Wallis H test was used to compare the mean responses across the groups (p ≤ 0.05).Results: The mean age of the respondents was 50.6 years (standard deviation [SD] 11.9). The global health status improved significantly in contrast with the functional scores. Financial difficulties were rampant, especially during the treatment phase. Insomnia and urinary frequency were the most cumbersome problems and remained so even after treatment.Conclusions: Despite an improvement in the global health, cervical cancer and its treatment had a negative influence on the QOL in all domains of lives of these women. Assessing the QOL of patients during treatment and follow-up visits would allow nurses to develop interventions to address distressing problems timeously. In addition, Africa's nurses should assess social functioning and develop programmes to prevent social dysfunction

Cervical Cancer: Overview and Prevention

BACKGROUND.Cervical cancer though a preventable disease; still has an estimated mortality of 80% from invasive cervical cancer in developing countries. The aim of this paper is to present an overview of cervical cancer and the various modalities available for screening and prevention of cervical cancer.METHODOLOGY: Google search and review of the literature of published works on overview of cervical cancer and its various modalities for screening and prevention were utilised.RESULTS.The incidence; aetiology; risk factors; clinical features; management and prevention of cervical cancer in Nigeria and as compared worldwide is presented. The reduction in incidence and mortality of cervical cancer in developed countries is related to the fact that cervical cancer screening is well institutionalized.CONCLUSION.Cervical cancer is the commonest genital tract malignancy in Nigeria. It is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the HPV. It is preventable! Vaccination against HPV is available worldwide and in Nigeria. It is thus imperative that the general public and medical personnel in particular appreciate the clinical importance of cervical cancer; and effectively outline the modalities for preventing cervical cancer; and thus advocate for institutionalizing cervical cancer screening activities in the Nigerian setting

traitement des cancers du col uterin : notre experience a l'Hopital General de Yaounde : a propos d'une serie de 111 malades

Cent onze malades presentant un cancer du col uterin histologiquement confirme ont ete traitees et suivies pendant une periode de quatre annees a l'Hopital General de Yaounde. Les moyens therapeutiques comportaient uniquement l'utilisation d'une maniere parfois isolee; mais le plus souvent en association des rayons gamma d'une energie moyenne de 1;25 Mev du CO60 et de la chirurgie. En effet; les auteurs dispose d'un plateau technique qui ne contient toujours pas de possibilites d'exploitation des avantages de la plesiocurietherapie et de l'endocurietherapie. Ils expliquent dans ce travail comment ils ont du prendre en consideration ces insuffisances techniques pendant le choix des strategies et modalites therapeutiques