Women with mental illness twice as likely to develop cervical cancer

Women suffering from mental illness, neuropsychiatric disability, or substance addiction are less likely to undergo gynecological screening tests for cervical cancer and more than twice as likely to develop the disease. Researchers from Karolinska Institute revealed their findings in The Lancet Public Health. The study emphasised the necessity of engaging these women proactively as a preventative intervention against cervical cancer.
In May 2020, the WHO approved a global strategy for eliminating cervical cancer as a women's health problem. Part of the strategy is a requirement that 70 percent of women are screened for the disease at least once before age 35 and twice before age 45. According to the researchers, care inequality is a major hurdles to this objective.
"Our study identified a high-risk group that needs extra attention if we're to succeed in eliminating cervical cancer," says one of the study's first authors Kejia Hu, postdoc researcher at the Institute of Environmental Medicine at Karolinska Institutet.
The observational study included over four million women born between 1940 and 1995. From this population, the researchers calculated the risk of cervical cancer and precancerous cervical lesions and participation in screening programs for cervical cancer, comparing women diagnosed by a specialist with mental illness, neuropsychiatric disability, or substance abuse with women without such diagnoses.
"Our results suggest that women with these diagnoses participate more seldom in screening programs at the same time as they have a higher incidence of lesions in the cervix," says Dr. Hu. "We thus found that they have twice the risk of developing cervical cancer.”
An elevated risk was observed for all diagnoses, but the greatest association was noted for substance abuse. Women with mental illness should be made more aware of the need to undergo regular gynecological screening, according to the researchers:
"It would lower their risk of cancer," says one of the paper's authors Karin Sundstrom, senior researcher at the Department of Laboratory Medicine, Karolinska Institutet. "Similarly, if healthcare professionals are more aware of the cancer risk in these patients, they can step up preventative measures and consider how these could be delivered to potentially under-served patients.”