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AIDS and cervical cancer

AIDS patients with cervical cancer receive special attention. The fact that cervical cancer is more common amongst women who are infected with HIV, supports the hypothesis that the immune system is capable of preventing the development of cervical cancer. Women who - under normal circumstances - would have been able to get rid of HPV infected cells in the cervix, do get cervical cancer when their immune system has been affected by AIDS. The first analysis of tumor cells of women with cervical cancer and AIDS shows that the cancer cells probably evolve differently because of the compromised immune system. This would be in line with the evolutionary model of the origins of cancer. The selection that is normally done by the immune system, is absent in AIDS patients.

Research

A great deal of knowledge about cervical cancer is essential to develop effective ways of preventing or curing this malignant tumor. The Department of Pathology at the Leiden University in The Netherlands is gathering this information. The most state of the art molecular biology technology is being used to draw as accurate a portrait as possible of a disease that kills so many women throughout the world. Similarities and differences between tumors from women living in participating countries are analyzed and the ways in which cancer cells escape the immune system are studied as we speak.