NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - The incidence of invasive squamous cell carcinoma of the cervix (SCC) continues to decline among U.S. women but the same cannot be said for invasive cervical adenocarcinoma, according to researchers in the cancer epidemiology and genetics branch of the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland.
Dr. Sophia S. Wang and colleagues used the U.S. Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) database to calculate incidence rates for cervical carcinoma diagnosed between 1976 and 2000 by histologic subtype, race, age, and disease stage.
More than 27,000 invasive cervical carcinomas were diagnosed during that period, with 19,703 cases of SCC and 3,895 cases of adenocarcinoma.
They report in the March 1st issue of the journal Cancer that the "overall incidence of invasive SCC declined over
The sharp increase in cases of SCC in situ noted in the early 1990s likely reflects a culmination of events including changes in nomenclature, improvements in treatment, and screening, the team reports.
Rates of adenocarcinoma in situ also increased during the study period, especially in young women, again due to better screening. However, this has not yet translated into a decrease in invasive adenocarcinoma incidence rates, according to Dr. Wang and colleagues. "There does not yet appear to be a screening effect for invasive adenocarcinoma," they write, although "sufficient time may not have lapsed for an effect to be observed."
Etiologic factors may explain the increasing incidence of invasive cervical adenocarcinoma in young white women, the investigators suggest, while in black women, the increase may reflect a "lack of effective screening or a differential disease etiology."
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