Geetha Menon

Summary:

According to the Canadian Cancer Society, 170 Albertan women were estimated to be diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2016. This annual incidence of cervical cancer is only 1.5% of all female cancers and hence appears to be insignificant in a country with a female population of about 17 million and fighting other challenging cancers of breast and lung, contributing to 25.8% and 14.1% of all female cancers, respectively. However, with its small numbers, this is a disease that can be easily cured/controlled in a developed country like Canada. In spite of modern sophisticated treatments, survival of patients with gynecological carcinomas is limited by local and metastatic recurrences. When not amenable to surgery, cervical cancer can be cured by a combination of chemotherapy, external beam and internal beam (brachytherapy) radiation therapy. The latter include accurate identification of the tumor and surrounding normal tissue using efficient imaging techniques (such as with MRI) and the delivery of the treatment using advanced machines precisely targeting the cancer. New ways are being researched at by our team to improve radiation therapy for cervical and breast cancers by identifying/improving delivery techniques and developing better dosimetric techniques.