January 11, 2022
January is Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, which means now is the perfect time to remind the women in your life to get their annual checkup. Something incredible about this cancer is that is it one of the few that can be entirely eliminated. That’s possible through either the HPV, or human papillomavirus, vaccination, or through screening with pap smears and HPV testing.
“The HPV vaccine is eligible for girls and boys, starting as early as the age of nine years old, up until the age of 26,” says Dr. Allison Staley from Rocky Mountain Gynecologic Oncology.
For some women, the vaccine came out too late. Dr. Staley says you can still receive the vaccine up to age 45.
“Especially if you have any risk of any new exposures to HPV, [or] any new sexual partners potentially.”
Dr. Staley says maintaining testing with your women’s health provider in order identify any precancerous cells is also incredibly important.
Read more at CBS4 Denver.