Drug use disorder linked to cervical cancer in women: Study

Written By : Medha Baranwal |Medically Reviewed By : Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli Published On 2021-01-13T02:00:26+05:30 | Updated On 13 Jan 2021 2:00 AM IST

Sweden: Drug use disorders (DUD) in women increases the risk of incident cervical cancer but not fatal cervical cancer, finds a recent study in the journal Gynecologic Oncology.

Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women globally. People with DUD including active drug use as well as opioid substitution treatment (OST) are at increased risk for a number of adverse health outcomes be it drug-related or non-drug related, blood-borne infections, and mortality.

There is a limited research on the potential associations between DUD and cervical cancer incidence and mortality. Therefore, the aim of this study by Disa Dahlman, Centrum för primärvårdsforskning, Clinical Research Center, Malmö, Sweden, and colleagues, was to investigate cervical cancer incidence and mortality among women with DUD compared to the general female population in Sweden.

Also Read: American Cancer Society updates guidelines on cervical cancer screening

For the purpose, the researchers conducted a cohort study based on Swedish national register data for the period January 1997–December 2015. They collected data from 3,838,248 women aged 15–75 years of whom 50,858 had DUD. Using Cox regression analysis, adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for incident and fatal cervical cancer were calculated for women with and without DUD.

The researchers found that after adjusting for age, educational attainment, social welfare, region of residence, marital status and HIV infection, DUD was significantly associated with incident cervical cancer (HR = 1.39), but not fatal cervical cancer (HR = 1.25).

"Our findings indicate that women with DUD should be given attention from clinicians and policy makers. This could be due to non-attendence of women with DUD in cervical cancer screening programs and other healthcare seeking barriers may affect the risk of incident cervical cancer but more research is needed for this topic," concluded the authors.

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"Cervical cancer among Swedish women with drug use disorders: A nationwide epidemiological study," is published in the journal Gynecologic Oncology.

DOI: https://www.gynecologiconcology-online.net/article/S0090-8258(20)34214-1/fulltext

Gynecologic Oncologydrug use disordercervical cancer

Source : Gynecologic Oncology

Medha Baranwal

MSc. Biotechnology

Medha Baranwal joined Medical Dialogues as an Editor in 2018 for Speciality Medical Dialogues. She covers several medical specialties including Cardiac Sciences, Dentistry, Diabetes and Endo, Diagnostics, ENT, Gastroenterology, Neurosciences, and Radiology. She has completed her Bachelors in Biomedical Sciences from DU and then pursued Masters in Biotechnology from Amity University. She has a working experience of 5 years in the field of medical research writing, scientific writing, content writing, and content management. She can be contacted at editorial@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751

Dr. Kamal Kant Kohli

Dr Kamal Kant Kohli-MBBS, DTCD- a chest specialist with more than 30 years of practice and a flair for writing clinical articles, Dr Kamal Kant Kohli joined Medical Dialogues as a Chief Editor of Medical News. Besides writing articles, as an editor, he proofreads and verifies all the medical content published on Medical Dialogues including those coming from journals, studies,medical conferences,guidelines etc. Email: drkohli@medicaldialogues.in. Contact no. 011-43720751