What are the symptoms of cervical cancer? Cervical cancer brings great physical and psychological harm to female friends. The symptoms of cervical cancer are asymptomatic and are often discovered during physical examinations and general screenings.

The symptoms of cervical cancer are explained in detail below:

1. Cervical erosion: Generally, cervical cancer patients are often accompanied by cervical erosion, and severe cervical erosion is the main cause of cancer. Sufficient attention should be paid to cervical erosion in young women who have not been treated for a long time, or who still have cervical erosion after menopause.

2. Contact bleeding: Contact bleeding is the most prominent symptom of cervical cancer. About 70%-80% of cervical cancer patients have vaginal bleeding. It often manifests as vaginal secretions mixed with blood during gynecological examination or when straining to defecate. If older women encounter bleeding, do not always think that it is caused by improper force and ignore the possibility of cervical cancer.

3. Irregular vaginal bleeding: Elderly women who have been menopausal for many years suddenly have menstruation again for no reason. The amount of bleeding is usually not large, and it is not accompanied by symptoms such as abdominal pain or low back pain, so it is easily ignored. In fact, this kind of irregular vaginal bleeding is often a sign of cervical cancer. Many elderly patients come to see a doctor with this symptom to get a diagnosis and timely treatment. Therefore, the elderly should be highly vigilant.

4. Pain: Pain often occurs in the lower abdomen or lumbosacral region. Sometimes pain can appear in the upper abdomen, thighs and hip joints. It is aggravated during menstruation, defecation or sexual life, especially when the inflammation extends posteriorly along the uterosacral ligament. Or it spreads along the bottom of the broad ligament, forming chronic parauterine connective tissue inflammation. When the main ligament of the cervix thickens, the pain becomes even worse. Whenever the cervix is ​​touched, it immediately causes pain in the iliac fossa and lumbosacral region. Some patients even experience symptoms such as nausea, which affects their sexual life.

5. Increased vaginal secretions: Clinically, about 75%-85% of cervical cancer patients have increased vaginal secretions to varying degrees. Most symptoms include an increase in leucorrhea, which is often accompanied by changes in odor and color. Under normal circumstances, the character and amount of leucorrhea are determined by the rise and fall of ovarian function. Women of childbearing age have cyclic changes in leucorrhea; postmenopausal women have very little leucorrhea. In patients with cervical cancer, due to the stimulation of cancer lesions, the secretory function of the cervical glands increases, producing mucus-like leucorrhea. Therefore, patients of childbearing age no longer have cyclic changes in the character and amount of leucorrhea. Postmenopausal patients are uncharacteristically, and the amount of leucorrhea increases. , and sticky, sometimes bloody. Abnormal leucorrhea, including an increase in quantity and changes in nature, is a symptom of cervical cancer.

What complications may occur?

1. The impact of pregnancy on cervical cancer: During pregnancy, the blood supply and lymphatic flow rate in the pelvis increase, which may promote the metastasis of cancer; and during delivery, cancer spread, severe bleeding and postpartum infection may occur. During pregnancy, due to the influence of estrogen, the cervical transition zone cells proliferate actively, which can resemble carcinoma in situ lesions, but there is still directional differentiation and the polarity is maintained. These changes can be restored after delivery.

2. Uterine cancer combined with pregnancy: Its complications are relatively rare. Patients may seek medical attention due to threatened abortion or prepartum hemorrhage. Vaginal smear and biopsy can confirm the diagnosis. If early-pregnant women have vaginal bleeding, they should routinely check the cervix with a speculum, and Perform cervical scraping cytology examination.

3. Pregnancy may also be complicated by carcinoma in situ: it cannot recover after delivery. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish it from carcinoma in situ and not to delay the condition

What treatments are available?

1. Surgical treatment is the preferred method. Stage I patients should undergo extrafascial total hysterectomy and bilateral adnexectomy, and stage II patients should undergo extensive total hysterectomy and pelvic lymph node dissection. Surgery can remove the cancerous uterus and other lesions that may have metastasized, including the closely adjacent ovaries, fallopian tubes, and surrounding lymph nodes. Through surgery, the tumor can be directly eradicated to achieve cure, or the tumor size can be reduced to benefit the patient's prognosis. Second, surgery allows for the correct diagnosis and staging of the disease. Although the vast majority of patients with endometrial cancer undergo segmental curettage, the error rate in pathological type and degree of differentiation between curettage specimens and hysterectomy specimens is as high as 20%, and these indicators are different from those after surgery. Further treatment is directly related to prognosis. Therefore, accurate clinical staging is the guarantee for selecting appropriate treatment, otherwise it is very likely to lead to excessive or insufficient treatment.

2. In patients with stage I of comprehensive surgery and radiotherapy, if cancer cells or cancer infiltration in the myometrium are found in the ascites, and there is metastasis to the lymph nodes, external irradiation is added after surgery. Stage II or some stage III patients are treated with external radiation or intracavitary irradiation before surgery, and surgery is performed 1 to 2 weeks after the completion of radiotherapy.

3. Radiotherapy: Those who are old and frail, have severe medical complications and cannot tolerate surgery, and those whose stage III or above disease is not suitable for surgery, can receive radiotherapy, including intracavitary and external irradiation.

4. Hormone treatment: Young patients with early-stage cancer who want to preserve their reproductive function, and patients with late-stage cancer who cannot be operated on or whose cancer has recurred can be treated with high-dose synthetic progesterone. For example, medroxyprogesterone acetate 400 mg, intramuscular injection, 2 to 3 times a week; progesterone caproate 500 mh, intramuscular injection, 2 to 3 times a week, etc. Efficacy cannot be evaluated for at least 12 weeks.

5. The anti-estrogen drug tamoxifen has the same indications as progesterone treatment. The general dosage is 20 to 40 mg/d, taken orally, and can be used for a long time or in divided courses.

6. For anti-cancer chemical drug treatment, 5-fluorouracil (5-Fu), cyclophosphamide (CTX), mitomycin (MMC), doxorubicin ( Combination chemotherapy such as BDR) and cisplatin (DDP) has certain effects.