Embryo Project Encyclopedia Articles

This thesis answers the following question: How does the history of cervical cancer show that prevention helps reduce rates of cancer-related deaths among women? By studying the history of cervical cancer, people can understand how a cancer that was once one of the top killers of women in the US has declined to become one of the lowest through the establishment of and effective communication of early prevention and diagnostics, both among the general public and within the medical community itself. This thesis is organized based on key episodes which were pertinent to the history of cervical cancer, primarily within the United States and Europe.

From 1936 to 1945, the Women’s Field Army, hereafter the WFA, educated women in the US on the early symptoms, prevention, and treatment of reproductive cancers. The WFA was a women-led volunteer organization and a branch of, what was then called, the American Society for the Control of Cancer, or ASCC. The WFA, headquartered in New York City, New York, recruited hundreds of thousands of women volunteers across the country. They distributed pamphlets, showed movies, and participated in other grassroots efforts to foster an understanding of reproductive cancers, namely breast and cervical cancer, among other women. The Women’s Field Army aided in reducing the number of cancer-related deaths by spreading cancer prevention awareness and teaching women about their reproductive health and the early detection of cancer, which was one of the first widespread educational resources about reproductive cancers for women.

The p53 protein acts as a pivotal suppressor of inappropriate cell proliferation. By initiating suppressive effects through induction of apoptosis, cell senescence, or transient cell-cycle arrest, p53 plays an important role in cancer suppression, developmental regulation, and aging. Its discovery in 1979 was a product of research into viral etiology and the immunology of cancer. The p53 protein was first identified in a study of the role of viruses in cancer through its ability to form a complex with viral tumor antigens. In the same year, an immunological study of cancer also found p53 due to its immunoreactivity with tumor antisera. Although a series of studies found p53 through various routes, and various researchers called it different names, it was eventually confirmed that they had all encountered the same protein, p53.

"Apoptosis: A Basic Biological Phenomenon with Wide-Ranging Implications in Tissue Kinetics" (hereafter abbreviated as "Apoptosis") was published in the British Journal of Cancer in 1972 and co-authored by three pathologists who collaborated at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. In this paper the authors propose the term apoptosis for regulated cell death that proceeds through active, controlled morphological changes. This is in contrast to necrosis, a passive mode of cell death that results from uncontrolled cellular reactions to injury or stress. The journal article also suggests that apoptosis plays crucial roles in various pathological and physiological conditions including the shaping of digits and the shrinking of vestigial organs in developing embryos.