(HealthDay News) — Correction for hysterectomy results in increased age-specific cervical cancer incidence rates, with the peak incidence shifting to older women, according to research published online May 12 in Cancer.
Anne F. Rositch, PhD, MSPH, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and colleagues calculated hysterectomy-corrected age-standardized and age-specific incidence rates of cervical cancer from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results registry from 2000 to 2009. Joinpoint regression was used to analyze trends in corrected cervical cancer incidence across age.
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In contrast to the relative decline in uncorrected rates, the researchers found that corrected rates continued to increase after age 35 to 39 years (APCCORRECTED, 10.43), but the rate was slower than among 20- to 34-years-olds (APCCORRECTED, 161.29). Women aged 65 to 69 years had the highest corrected incidence, with a rate of 27.4 cases per 100,000 women, compared with the highest uncorrected rate of 15.6 per 100,000 women among those aged 40 to 44 years.
The largest impact of correction for hysterectomy was seen for older, black women, with their high prevalence of hysterectomy.
“Given the high and nondeclining rate of cervical cancer in women over the age of 60 to 65 years, when women are eligible to exit screening, risk and screening guidelines for cervical cancer in older women may need to be reconsidered,” the researchers wrote.