Shannon Pethick says she’s disheartened with a Canadian Cancer Statistics report says the country may not reach its goal of eliminating cervical cancer in the next 15 years<\/p>\n
TORONTO \u2014 Shannon Pethick thought cervical cancer would be in Canada’s rear-view by now.<\/p>\n
“It hurts my heart because we should be past this,” she said from her home in Saskatoon, reflecting on her diagnosis 15 years ago, at age 32.<\/p>\n
But the latest Canadian Cancer Statistics report says the country may not reach its goal of eliminating cervical cancer by 2040.<\/p>\n
Data published by the Canadian Cancer Statistics Advisory Committee shows a \u201cconcerning plateau\u201d of cervical cancer rates, signalling Canada is moving in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n
The World Health Organization set a global goal in 2018 of virtually eliminating this type of cancer, which is caused by the human papilloma virus, a common sexually transmitted infection, to fewer than four cases diagnosed per 100,000 females.<\/p>\n
Canada was making progress for decades as rates steadily declined between 1984 and 2005, but since then the trend has fluctuated.<\/p>\n
The report says 430 people in Canada are expected to die from cervical cancer in 2025. While that accounts for a small portion of the 87,400 expected deaths due to cancer in the country this year, all of them are potentially preventable. Unlike many other cancers, there’s a vaccine to prevent this one.<\/p>\n
“There’s no reason for there to be over 400 people dying this year from cervical cancer,” Pethick said.<\/p>\n
The “what ifs” still linger for her. What if she had gone for a routine Pap test cervical cancer screening, instead of putting it off for seven years.<\/p>\n
She underwent two months of radiation five days a week, chemotherapy on Fridays, and five sessions of internal radiation, and she is now cancer-free.<\/p>\n
“Doing all of this and getting this thing out of my body also meant that I was never going to be able to have kids,” she said.<\/p>\n
The cancer was growing fast and doctors said taking time to freeze her eggs could have been harmful.<\/p>\n
“I still struggle with that,” Pethick said as she lifted her glasses to stop tears from falling down her cheeks.<\/p>\n
She said the invasive nature of a Pap, which involves inserting a speculum into a patient\u2019s vagina to swab their cervix, deterred her from the exam. If an HPV self-testing kit was an option at the time, she says she would have tested earlier.<\/p>\n
Self-testing is used in British Columbia, and considered just as accurate as tests collected by a health provider. Similar plans are underway in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Cancer Society’s director of surveillance Jennifer Gillis says Canada is not where it had hoped to be likely due to lower HPV vaccination rates, a decline in the rate of people getting screened, and gaps in followup care.<\/p>\n
Gillis says there are so many tools available to change the current trajectory, such as switching from the Pap test to the HPV test.<\/p>\n
She also says the HPV vaccine should be free for those who missed getting it in school, as the cost \u2014 three doses at $215 per shot \u2014 is a barrier.<\/p>\n
Canada’s plan to eliminate cervical cancer included a target of fully immunizing 90 per cent of 17-year-olds with the HPV vaccine by 2025.<\/p>\n
The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer says only three provinces, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Quebec, are reporting rates above 80 per cent.<\/p>\n
The Federation of Medical Women of Canada said in a paper last year that fewer than 20 per cent of Canadians have had the HPV vaccine.<\/p>\n
Dr. Milena Forte, a member of the federation and family doctor in Toronto, says the HPV vaccine has always had lower uptake than other routine vaccines.<\/p>\n
“There is still this association or misinformation around the fact that by providing this vaccine you’re somehow condoning any sexual behaviour,” Forte said.<\/p>\n
“We have a free way to decrease rates of cervical cancer,” she said. “Everybody should be lining up for this.”<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 17, 2025.<\/p>\n
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.<\/p>\n
Hannah Alberga, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shannon Pethick says she’s disheartened with a Canadian Cancer Statistics report says the country may not reach its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[49,48,40011,84],"class_list":{"0":"post-290233","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cervical-cancer","11":"tag-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}