Cervical cancer is the second most common and third most deadly cancer in women in the world. The situation in Lithuania is no different, even the opposite – the incidence of cervical cancer is the highest compared to the whole of Europe. However, cancer does not appear in an hour, a few days or even a few months. It develops slowly, as if giving a person time to defeat himself. Precancerous conditions warn of the possible development of cancer. Therefore, it is necessary to identify them and prevent cancer through treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The uterus is an unpaired internal female genital organ located in the lower abdomen. The upper wide part of the uterus passes into the narrow lower part – the cervix, inside which is the cervical canal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cervix is \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bmade up of two types of epithelium: one of them is a multilayered squamous epithelium, light pink in color. The cylindrical epithelium covers the cervical canal, it is brighter red in color. The place where these two different types of epithelium meet is called the junction. Changes in these epithelium or their presence \u201cin the wrong place\u201d may not cause any specific symptoms or may eventually progress to cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cervical erosion is a term widely used in society. This concept is broad, as it can include cervical ectopia, ectropion, cervical epithelial dysplasia, or other precancerous conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the presence of precancerous or even early cancerous changes in the cervical epithelium, a woman does not experience any specific or alarming symptoms and rarely consults a doctor. Therefore, a preventive gynecological examination is very important, during which the doctor will easily notice changes in the cervix and determine the degree of these changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the examination methods is colposcopy, or videocolposcopy. During it, the cervix is \u200b\u200bexamined with a specially adapted instrument called a colposcope and the location of the changes is determined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A colposcope is an optical device that can significantly magnify a small image of the cervix, allowing even the smallest epithelial changes to be detected. A colposcope examination is painless because the device does not touch the cervix or vaginal surface; the doctor looks at the cervix from a distance using the principle of a microscope, where very small objects are magnified with the help of optics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Videocolposcopy is a colposcopy examination in which the image seen by the doctor is transmitted directly to a monitor, and the patient herself can observe it together with the doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During colposcopy, the cervix is \u200b\u200bsmeared with various solutions. This cleans the surface of the cervix and makes it suitable for assessment. Cleaning the cervix with an acetic acid solution allows you to accurately assess the area of \u200b\u200b\u200b\u200bchange in the cervical epithelium, suspect tissue changes, see pathological spots, vascular growths and other changes that are not characteristic of a healthy cervix. During a colposcopy, precancerous changes in the cervix are detected. The cervix is \u200b\u200bstained with Lugol’s solution (iodine) so that the doctor can see the boundaries of the changes more clearly, since healthy and unhealthy cervical tissue stain differently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the presence of cervical changes, a small piece of tissue is removed or cut out from the suspicious area with special forceps. This is called a cervical biopsy. It is later sent to the histology laboratory for examination. A cervical biopsy is always performed under colposcope control. If there are several suspicious areas, a cervical biopsy is taken from each of them. A cervical biopsy is a completely painless procedure. It does not require any special preparation of the patient. The only condition: there should be no acute inflammation in the vagina and cervix. Most often, the wound that appears after a cervical biopsy does not bleed for long. It is enough to abstain from sexual intercourse for about a week, and the wound left after the biopsy will heal on its own. In very rare cases, the wound bleeds for more than three days, or the bleeding is heavier than during menstruation, and then it is necessary to consult a gynecologist and have the cervical biopsy site stitched.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An important cervical examination, which is the most widely used because it does not require any additional device, is the oncocytological examination, also called Pap or Papanicolaou.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the oncocytological examination, surface cells of the cervix are taken with a brush or spatula and placed on a special slide, or placed in a special liquid medium. Such a sample is sent to the laboratory, where cell changes are evaluated. During this examination, it is determined whether the cells have changed and how they have changed, and the number of malignant cells is also assessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The results of the oncocytological examination can often be false positives. If you get an abnormal Pap test result, it is necessary to perform a colposcopy and biopsy of the cervix. During the biopsy, a small piece of tissue is taken from the appropriate layer and examined in a laboratory, where a histological or histochemical analysis is performed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cervical cancer is the second most common and third most deadly cancer in women in the world. The situation in Lithuania is no different, even the opposite – the incidence of cervical cancer is the highest compared to the whole of Europe. However, cancer does not appear in an hour, a few days or even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-280","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sveikamoteris.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sveikamoteris.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sveikamoteris.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sveikamoteris.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sveikamoteris.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sveikamoteris.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":602,"href":"https:\/\/sveikamoteris.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/280\/revisions\/602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sveikamoteris.lt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}