Cervical cancer starts in a woman's cervix, the lower narrow part of the uterus. The uterus holds the growing fetus during pregnancy. The cervix connects the lower part of the uterus to the vagina and, with the vagina, forms the birth canal. Cervical cancer is also called "cancer of the cervix."

Cervical cancer usually grows very slowly. Over a period of several years, cells on the surface of the cervix change from normal to abnormal. At first, the change is simply abnormal, not cancerous. Researchers believe, however, that some of these abnormal changes mark the first step in a series of slow changes that can lead to cancer.

Some of the abnormal changes go away without treatment, but others are pre-cancerous and need attention to keep cancer from developing. This phase of the disease is called "dysplasia." Often, the pre-cancerous tissue can be removed or destroyed without harming healthy tissue, but in some cases, a hysterectomy (removal of the uterus) is needed to prevent cervical cancer. How a pre-cancerous area (called a "lesion") is treated depends on how big the lesion is and what type of changes have occurred in the cells, whether the woman wants to have children in the future, the woman's age, the woman's general health and the preference of the woman and her doctor.

If the pre-cancerous cells change into true cancer cells and spread deeper into the cervix or to other tissues and organs, the disease is then called cervical cancer.

Cervical cancers are divided into two main types, named for the type of cell within the cervix where the cancer started:

* Squamous cell carcinomas make up about 85%-90% of all cervical cancers
* Another 10%-15% are adenocarcinomas

As we well know, there are many kinds of cancer; unfortunately they all come about because of the out-of-control growth of abnormal cells.