Proteome analysis of Squamous cell carcinoma and its precancerous lesions of the uterine cervix

Abstract

Cancer of the uterine cervix is one of the leading cancers among women. It newlineis a preventable cancer as cervix is an easily amenable organ and the occurrence of newlinea heterogeneous spectrum of epithelial abnormalities namely squamous intra newlineepithelial lesions (low to high grade) about ten to fifteen years prior to the onset of newlineinvasive cancer has been well established. The significance of Pap smear to detect newlinethese precancerous lesions is also well documented and cervical cancer screening newlineprogramme has been formulated based on this principle. Despite Pap smear newlinescreening programs have significantly reduced the incidence of cervical cancer in newlinemany of the industrialized countries; this disease still continues to take newlineextraordinary toll on the lives of women in India and other low resource countries. newlineIt is because of the lack of organized screening programmes. Lack of adequate newlinetrained cytologists and financial resources to screen all the eligible women in our newlinecommunity are the main impediments for implementing Pap smear screening newlineprogrammes in India. This is further compounded by another fact that equivocal or newlinelow grade abnormal Pap smears identified in screening programmes require newlineretesting or diagnostic work-up by colposcopy and biopsy and/ treatment. Even newlinethough more than 75% of the low grade lesions revert to normal without any newlineintervention, all are followed up with retesting and / further diagnostic workup newlinewhich increases the screening load and eat up more resources. It is because of our newlineinability to recognize the progressive high risk lesions. So it has been difficult to newlineestablish and sustain Pap smear based programmes in low-resource countries. If a newlinebiological marker to predict the progressive potential of the low grade lesion can newlinebe identified, treatment and further follow up can be confined to them alone, safely newlineeliminating the non-progressive lesions, saving the overuse of resources. Also the newlinemarker can be tried as a standalone test for cervical cancer screening. Recent newlinev newlineadvances in understanding the natural histo