MOTHER'S DAY AND MORE...

stcabriniblog
May 13, 2015
2 min read

Motherhood : All love begins and ends there. – Robert Browning

She has always been there for us with her unconditional love and so we celebrate her unselfishness and dedication every year during Mother’s Day. St. Cabrini Medical Center and Cancer Institute gave tribute to all mothers in a different way…by giving focus on a mother’s health through our Layman’s Forum on Breast and Cervical Cancer.

Last May 11, 2015, we invited a lot of women, mothers mostly, to listen and participate through asking questions about Breast and Cervical Cancer. Dr. Joseph Thomas Noriega, our Breast Surgeon, gave a lecture about the causes, symptoms, prevention, and surgery of breast cancer. He also took time to answer the audience’s questions about the disease in layman’s terms for the audience to better understand and know more about this disease. It was an engrossing, lively discussion that has definitely enlightened a lot of women.

Dr. Menandro A. Villadelgado, our Oncologic Gynecologist, also gave an enlightening lecture on the causes, symptoms, and prevention of Cervical Cancer. He also entertained a lot of questions from the audience and helped a lot of women understand cervical cancer more.

This also gave way to the presentation of Dr. Jose Jasper Andal, our Anatomical Pathologist, of the latest method in cervical cancer screening, the BD SurePath System, an innovation of the conventional Pap Smear.

It is common knowledge that Pap Smear or Papanicolaou Test is a method of cervical screening used to detect potentially pre-cancerous or cancerous processes in the cervix. Although effective at detecting abnormalities in the cervix at an early stage, there is still a glitch in the method that could make the difference between finding the disease and missing it.

The Pap smear method uses a sampling device to scrape a woman’s cervix and collect samples of cervical cells. The sample is smeared and fixed on a microscope slide, and the sampling device is discarded. In the enhanced BD SurePath System, the same methods apply except that the sampling device is the one put in the vial and sent to the lab for processing, thus ensuring that 100% of the sample is used for processing and no diagnostic cells are discarded in the process. Additionally, the BD SurePath process also easily removes unwanted components such as mucus, that make the sample tricky during observation, thus creating a slide that is easy to screen. This prevents the patient coming back and forth for retesting.

The Pap Test, when combined with a regular program for screening and appropriate follow up, can reduce cervical cancer deaths by up to 80% and with the BD SurePath Liquid Based Pap Test, the detection of abnormal cells increases by a large percentage.

St. Cabrini Medical Center and Cancer Institute has recently adapted the BD SurePath Liquid Based Pap Test to allow us to give you better and more accurate results in your cervical cancer screening.