Approximately 11,500 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed each year and, sadly, roughly 4,000 women will succumb to the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But as Dr. Scott Purinton, chief of gynecologic oncology for Geisinger Medical Center, explains, there are simple steps women can take to help lower their chances of contracting cervical cancer.

“(Most) cervical cancer is HPV-related,” Purinton said.

“If people were 100% compliant with Pap smears, we would not have this situation, because the Pap smear is designed to catch this abnormality before it’s cancer,” he said.

“The Pap smear is such an easy, wonderful screening test to get,” Purinton said, noting that providers know it’s not exactly at the top of the list of things women look forward to.

“But provided they have a provider they’re comfortable with, exams, in general, should never be painful and it takes probably less than 30 seconds to do the entire pelvic exam, including the Pap smear,” he said.

The screening is vital as there is an incubation period between when abnormal cells begin to form and when invasive cancer develops, during which, if caught, intervention is possible.

The type of intervention is dependent on the type of abnormality found, Purinton said, which includes low grade lesions and high grade lesions.

“Sometimes low grade lesions, you don’t really necessarily have to do anything about. You just maybe repeat a Pap smear in a year,” he explained.

“High grade, generally speaking, the patient will come back and they will undergo what’s called a colposcopy, and basically it’s a microscope that we use to look at the cervix,” Purinton said.

“If we see something that we don’t like, we are able to do biopsies in the office. Those get sent to pathologists. If it’s just dysplasia, which is a fancy word for pre-cancer, the woman has the option of undergoing a cone biopsy, where you go in and take out a chunk of the cervix, but they’re still able to keep the majority of their cervix, their uterus, and they’re able to have kids if they want to,” he said.

“If that biopsy comes back and shows cancer, that patient gets referred to a GYN oncologist, and if the woman is done with future fertility, she’s going to get some sort of cancer-directed treatment, either surgery or chemo, radiation,” he said, “and that basically depends upon the stage.”

Women should begin receiving Pap smears by the age of 21, regardless of their sexual activity, Purinton said.

“The nice thing is that women don’t necessarily need to get them yearly, provided that their Pap smear test was normal,” he said.

“If you’re 21 years old, you go in and your Pap smear is normal, and they did the HPV co-testing, you may not need to go back for three years for a Pap test, but you should definitely continue to see your gynecologist yearly,” Purinton said.

Pap smears, colposcopy and biopsies are all quick and easy office-based procedures that can be done by a general obstetrician gynecologist, and typically are well tolerated, Purinton said.

However, Pap smears are not the only item in the toolbox of cervical cancer prevention. Purinton strongly urges parents and guardians to get their daughters vaccinated against HPV.

Vaccination typically occurs between 9 and 12 years old, before sexual activity begins, and is also available for males, according to Purinton.

“The theory is getting the individual vaccinated before exposure, which is why when you’re a kid, you get all sorts of shots, because you want to get their immunity built up before they’re exposed,” he said.

“There are literally hundreds of subtypes of HPV, but there are four that basically cause the majority of the problems. HPV 16 and HPV 18 are the main two that cause cancer, and then six and 11 can cause other issues, like genital warts,” Purinton explained.

“The vaccine by no means contains all 100 and whatever subtypes there are, but it contains the most important ones,” he said, noting that if widespread vaccination were to occur, it could lead to the eradication of the most problematic subtypes.

With the onslaught of misinformation in recent years regarding vaccines, Purinton works hard to impart the importance of such preventative measures.

“I get very personal with it. I share with patients, ‘Hey, as soon as my daughter was old enough, I had her get vaccinated,” he explained.

“I think part of it, too, is you have to have a dialogue with the patient. A lot of times, the conversation is like, ‘Alright, why wouldn’t you want to be vaccinated?’ And they’ll say something like, ‘Because of the horrible side effects.’ And I’ll ask what side effects, what they’ve heard, because most of the time, what they’ve heard is not correct,” Purinton said.

“Anything you put in your body — including water, Motrin, Tylenol — is gonna have side effects. There’s no medication that has no side effects, but what I tell them is that you have to balance the side effects with what you’re trying to prevent,” he said.

“The most common side effect of any vaccine is local tenderness at the injection site. You may not feel great for 24 to 48 hours, but quite frankly, I tell my patients, ‘Hey, be thankful that you’re having that, because it means the vaccines are working,” Purinton said.

“For me, it’s a cost benefit. There’s no intervention that’s without side effects. Radiation has side effects, but so does untreated cancer. Untreated cancer is going to win every time, and by win, I mean it will kill you,” he said.

In the end, Purinton’s advice amounts to the age-old adage, “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

“The word I would put out is: Get your Pap smear, because any intervention that can be done before it’s cancer is going to be much, much easier. And obviously, the prognosis is night and day,” he said.

“I know you’re not looking forward to it, but go get it. Have the peace of mind that it’s going to catch the overwhelming majority of the problem. And the bottom line is that the sooner you can diagnose, the better the prognosis is going to be,” Purinton said.