Stress and Cervical Cancer
New Study Reveals Stress May Play Role in Disease
Feb 15, 2008 Jacqueline Risher
Preliminary results from a new study conducted at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia suggest that women with higher stress levels may have a lowered immune response to the human papillomavirus (HPV). Researchers have long known that HPV infection is the primary cause of cervical cancer, though only a small proportion of women infected with the virus will go on to develop cancer of the cervix. Most sexually active women will contract HPV during their lifetime and 90% of them are able to fight and successfully clear the disease. Thus, presence of the virus itself does not seem to be enough to cause cancer. Previous studies linking stress to cervical cancer spurred the researchers to ask if stress somehow dampens the body’s immune response to the HPV virus.
There are over 100 different strains of HPV but only few, such as HPV-16 and HPV-18, are thought to cause cervical cancer. In fact, those two HPV strains alone are estimated to account for approximately 70% of cervical cancer cases. Of the 102 patients included in the study, half of the women who had abnormal Pap results were found to be infected with an HPV strain known to cause cancer. In comparison, only 18% of women with normal Pap smears were infected with the same cancer-causing strains. Thus, women who had abnormal Pap results were more likely to report higher than normal levels of stress in their lives.
Dr. Carolyn Fang, the study’s lead author, makes the distinction that it is perceived stress and not necessarily major stress events that seems to be the culprit. Women were asked about their perceived stress levels (how stressed they felt) as well as actual major “stress events” (such as a job loss, a divorce, or a loved-one’s death) over a six month period. “Women who reported higher levels of perceived stress — regardless of what was actually happening in their life — showed an impaired immune response to HPV,” reveals Fang. However she cautions that this link need not cause alarm and that further research is needed to determine if lowering stress can improve the body’s immune response. “I don't want women to think that just because they're feeling stressed they will get cervical cancer,” Fang added.
While these findings are intriguing, it is too early to determine and certainly unlikely that cervical cancer is attributable entirely to stress, researchers caution. However, these findings may explain the observation that stressful times in a woman’s life can be associated with abnormal Pap results.
As many infected women experience no symptoms and no complications from an HPV infection, this virus is often considered a “silent” sexually-transmitted disease. As Pap exams are able to detect pre-cancerous changes in the cells of the cervix before a tumor develops, many of the 4,000 U.S. deaths a year from cervical cancer could be prevented by this early detection method.
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