Who Develops Cervical Cancer?

Cervical cancer is most often diagnosed in women who are between the ages of 50 and 55.

• Girls under age 15 rarely develop the disease, but the risk of cervical cancer does rise between the late teen years and the early 30’s.
• In both white and black women, cervical carcinoma in situ (a benign tumor) is most common between the ages of 25 and 30.

Some individuals are more likely to develop cervical cancer:

• City-dwellers and women who are members of racial or cultural minorities develop cervical cancer more often than other women do.
• Vietnamese women have the highest cervical cancer rate in the United States.
• Hispanics, Native Americans, and African Americans develop cervical cancer more often than white women do.

These statistics may reflect that:

• Many recent immigrants and other minority groups wrongly believe that a woman who isn’t sexually promiscuous doesn’t need to have a Pap test.
• African American women tend to have Pap tests less often than white women.