Chronic Disease Prevention
The incidence of invasive cervical cancer has decreased significantly over the last 40 years, due in large part to organized early detection programs. Although all sexually active women are at risk for cervical cancer, the disease is more common among women of low socioeconomic status, those with a history of multiple sex partners or early onset of sexual intercourse, and smokers. Cervical cancer deaths are very troubling because the majority of discovered cases are treatable.
Approximately 80 new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed each year in Ontario, and about 150 women die from this disease annually. In LGL, the incidence rate has been quite variable over the past 20 years (see figure 1). Incidence rates observed between 1992-1995 were considerably higher than in the late 1980. This trend appears to be occurring locally as well as in the province as a whole. Between 1993-1995 the number of incident cases discovered among women residing in LGL was very similar to the number being discovered per women in all Ontario (see figure 6).
Between 1981 and 1996 there were 57 deaths due to cervical cancer in LGL, an average of 3.5 deaths per year. Between 1992 & 1996 the average crude mortality rate due to cervical cancer in Leeds, Grenville and Lanark was 4.8 deaths per 100,000 women (see figure 2). Between 1994-1996 very similar mortality rates were observed in LGL and Ontario from cervical cancer (see figure 3).
Because cervical cancer treatment is so successful, proper screening is very important. In 1996, 45% of women 18 years of age and older, living in the combined regions of Leeds, Grenville and Lanark, Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington, and Hasting and Prince Edward (LGL/KFLA/HPE) had ever been screened for cervical cancer (i.e. a Pap Test). Women 18 to 24 were less likely to have a Pap Test. In LGL/KFLA/HPE 29% of women within this age group had a Pap Test (see figure 4). Of these women, 77% in LGL/KFLA/HPE and 79% in Ontario had the test in the last three years prior to 1996 (see figure 5).
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