When Dr. Jennifer Young finished her fellowship training in Gynecologic Oncology, she traveled to rural Tanzania to participate in a cooperative research project with her former colleagues in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Virginia.  While in Tanzania, Dr. Young continued her research on cervical cancer screening.  What she observed was that cancer of the cervix tends to be diagnosed in its later stages when it’s less treatable.

Cervical cancer is responsible for a large proportion of female deaths worldwide due to poor screening, and disproportionately afflicts women in developing countries. In Tanzania, cervical cancer ranks as the first most frequent cancer among women between 15 and 44 years of age.  Screening and timely treatment saves lives.  

On Monday May 31, Dr. Young will return to Tanzania, along with doctors from the University of Virginia and her colleague in Reproductive Infectious Diseases, Dr. Gweneth Lazenby.  These doctors will work together to help determine an acceptable method for cervical cancer screening for low-resource women in rural Tanzania.  To aid in this aim, the doctors will collect information on the prevalence and types of human Papillomavirus (HPV) causing cervical dysplasia and cancer in these women. 

“Women are dying of cervical cancer every day in Africa.  If we can be part of bringing new technology to Tanzania that helps diagnosis cervical cancer early, it will be a huge step forward. We are still years away from large scale vaccination against cervical cancer in rural Tanzania and thus need to be able to offer these women something today while (hopefully sometime in the not too distant future) vaccinating their children to prevent cervical cancer in the future,” said Young.