Introduction
Cancer of the uterus has two other synonyms: Uterine cancer and endometrial cancer (as doctors call it). It is the most common genital cancer in women. Although it represents about half of the genital cancers in women, it is responsible only for about 1/5 th of all the deaths regarding female genital cancers. The reason for this is that this cancer arises from the lining of the uterus and vaginal bleeding as a symptom occurs at a much earlier stage than with cancer of the cervix.
The patient sees a physician in about 90% of all cases of uterine cancer, so that the cancer is caught at an early stage when it is still confined to the uterus meaning that it was diagnosed an early stage. As will be outlined below, in early cases of uterine cancer the gynecologist can do a hysterectomy and cure the cancer (achieve a 5-year cure rate of 90%). Sadly, later stages are less fortunate.
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