What are the symptoms of cervical cancer in women?

It should be said that most women lack knowledge about cervical cancer. Even if they have related symptoms of cervical cancer, they will not think about cervical cancer and will not think that they are so close to misfortune. Below, experts will introduce the symptoms of cervical cancer, and hope that women can pay more attention.

Early cervical cancer often has no obvious symptoms and signs, and the cervix may be smooth or difficult to distinguish from cervical columnar epithelium ectopia. Patients with cervical canal type are easily missed or misdiagnosed because of their normal cervical appearance. As the disease progresses, the following symptoms may appear:

1. Symptoms

(1) Vaginal bleeding in the early stages is mostly contact bleeding; in the middle and late stages it is irregular vaginal bleeding. The amount of bleeding varies depending on the size of the lesion and the extent of invasion of interstitial blood vessels. If large blood vessels are invaded, massive bleeding may occur. Young patients may also experience prolonged menstruation and increased menstrual flow; elderly patients often experience irregular vaginal bleeding after menopause. Generally, vaginal bleeding symptoms appear earlier in the exogenous type and the amount of bleeding is heavy, while the symptoms appear later in the endogenous type.

(2) Vaginal discharge Most patients have vaginal discharge. The fluid is white or bloody. It may be as thin as water or rice water, or have a fishy odor. Patients in the late stage may have a large amount of rice-soup-like or purulent and foul-smelling leucorrhea due to necrosis of cancerous tissue and infection.

(3) Late-stage symptoms include different secondary symptoms depending on the extent of cancer involvement. Such as frequent urination, urgency, constipation, swelling and pain in the lower limbs, etc.; when the tumor compresses or involves the ureter, it can cause ureteral obstruction, hydronephrosis and uremia; in the late stage, there may be symptoms of systemic failure such as anemia and cachexia.

2. Signs:

Carcinoma in situ and microinvasive carcinoma may have no obvious macroscopic lesions, and the cervix may be smooth or only have columnar epithelial ectopia. Different signs may appear as the disease progresses. Exophytic cervical cancer may be manifested by polyp-like and cauliflower-like growths, which are often accompanied by infection, and the tumors are brittle and prone to bleeding. Endophytic cervical cancer is manifested by hypertrophy, hardness, and dilation of the cervical canal. In the late stage, the cancerous tissue necrose and falls off, forming ulcers or cavities with a foul odor. When the vaginal wall is affected, growths can be seen growing on the vaginal wall or the vaginal wall becomes hard; when the paracervical tissue is affected, bimanual and triple-manual examinations may reveal thickening, nodularity, and hardness of the paracervical tissue, or the formation of a frozen pelvic cavity.

Through the above experts’ explanations, I believe that female friends have already realized the symptoms of cervical cancer. I hope that when the above symptoms appear, women can pay great attention to them and go to a regular hospital for examination and treatment in time to try to control the development of the disease and improve their quality of life.