Doctors have long promoted IUDs, or intrauterine devices, as an effective way to prevent pregnancy. Now, in a finding that has surprised even the experts, research suggests that IUDs have an unexpected benefit: preventing cervical cancer.

-Team@CMHF

• According to research women who had used an IUD had almost half the risk of cervical cancer as other women.
• The international analysis, published in The Lancet Oncology, combined data from 26 studies with a total of more than 20,000 women.
• Although doctors have known for some time that women who use IUDs have a lower risk of cancer of the lining of the uterus, researchers say they never suspected that the devices might protect against tumors of the cervix, on the contrary researchers believed IUDs might increase cervical cancer risk.
• Cervical cancer is caused by infection with the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a family of viruses that spreads easily through sexual contact.
1. In addition to cervical cancer, HPV can cause genital warts in both men and women, as well as cancers of the vagina, vulva, penis, anus and throat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
2. The study’s authors say they can’t fully explain why an IUD might fight cancer.
3. Unlike a condom, the IUD doesn’t create a physical barrier against the virus.
4. By causing a chronic, low-level irritation in the cervix, an IUD may rev up a woman’s immune system, as if her body were trying to heal a wound, according to an accompanying editorial by Karl Ulrich Petry, a researcher at the Klinicum Wolfsburg in Germany.
5. That small immune boost may be enough to clear persistent HPV infections and even get rid of precancerous lesions.
6. Still, it’s too soon to begin recommending IUDs for cervical cancer prevention, says Carol Brown, a cervical cancer specialist at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, who wasn’t involved in the new study.
• Researchers will need to confirm this finding with larger, more rigorous trials before they can be sure about the IUD’s benefits.
• Women already can reliably protect themselves from cervical cancer, however, through regular screenings, which have dramatically cut the number of deaths from the disease, says Edgar Simard, a senior epidemiologist with the American Cancer Society.
• The society recommends regular screenings, because they allow doctors to detect and remove cervical cancers and pre-cancers early, while they’re still treatable.
• In spite of its limitations, the study does help scientists better understand HPV and cervical cancer

For further reading log on to:  http://yourlife.usatoday.com/health/medical/womenshealth/story/2011-09-12/Study-IUDs-may-also-prevent-cervical-cancer/50373772/1