What causes cervical erosion?

Cervical erosion is an old medical term. We now believe that cervical erosion is a physiological phenomenon rather than a pathological phenomenon. We call cervical erosion cervical columnar epithelium ectopia, which is mainly caused by sexual intercourse stimulation, inflammatory stimulation, estrogen stimulation, recurrent miscarriage injury, and normal delivery injury.

Normally, the epithelium inside the cervical canal is columnar epithelium, which is red, very thin, and full of blood vessels; the epithelium on the surface of the cervix is ​​squamous epithelium, which is pink and smooth. There is a squamous-columnar junction around the cervical opening. When women start having sex, this squamous-columnar junction will shift outward due to the stimulation of sex, estrogen, and inflammation. That is, the columnar epithelium that should have existed in the cervical canal is turned inside out. We call this eversion. The surface of this columnar epithelium is red and looks like erosion, but it is actually just ectopic columnar epithelium.

The columnar epithelium of the cervical canal secretes fluid, so women with outward migration of the columnar epithelium have more vaginal secretions, which are often a culture medium for bacteria. As the secretions increase, the bacteria get enough nutrition and will multiply widely, causing vaginitis. The secretions are affected by inflammation and different types of bacteria, and can have different manifestations. They can be clear, light yellow, yellow or even green. In the case of bleeding, they can also be brown.

Cervical columnar epithelial ectopia does not require treatment, but it needs to be differentiated from cervical cancer. We should perform cervical cancer screening regularly. If both TCT and HPV screening are negative, no treatment is required.