Statistics About Cervical Can... Health Article

Some people use numbers called statistics to figure out their chances of getting cancer. Or they use them to try to figure out their chance of being cured. Statistics show what happens with large groups of people. But statistics can’t be used to know or predict what will happen to a particular person. That’s because no two people are alike.

These are some 2007 statistics about cervical cancer in the United States. They came from the American Cancer Society’s booklet Cancer Facts & Figures.

• About 11,000 women will find out they have invasive cervical cancer this year.

• This year, about 3,700 women will die from cervical cancer.

• Hispanic women and African-American women are more likely to get cervical cancer than non-Hispanic white women.

• Half of the women who get cervical cancer are between 35 and 55 years of age.

• Nearly all women with cervical cancer have human papillomavirus (HPV).

• The death rate from cervical cancer continues to decrease by almost 14% a year.

The regular use of the Pap test has helped lower cervical cancer deaths in the United States by about 70% since 1955. Before then, it used to be one of the most common causes of cancer deaths in women in the United States. It still remains a major cause of death in women worldwide.