Can cervical erosion develop into cervical cancer?

"Cervical erosion" troubles many female friends, especially now some medical institutions and commercial advertisements, driven by profit, exaggerate the harm of "cervical erosion", causing women to have great worry and panic about it.

Cervical erosion is a normal physiological change of the cervix, not a pathological condition. Usually when the hormone level in the body rises, the cervical columnar epithelium moves outward and covers the surface of the cervix. The cervix looks congested, red, and eroded, which is called cervical erosion. Therefore, many unmarried women who do not even have sex will also have cervical erosion.

For many asymptomatic cervical erosions, no special treatment is needed, and cervical erosion itself will not develop into cervical cancer. However, patients with moderate to severe cervical erosion usually experience increased vaginal discharge, odor, bleeding after sexual intercourse, vulvar itching and other symptoms. These symptoms are very similar to the early symptoms of cervical cancer, especially contact bleeding of the cervix. Cervical erosion and cervical precancerous lesions or cervical cancer are sometimes difficult to distinguish with naked eye examination.

Therefore, before treating cervical erosion, it is important to first conduct cervical cytology and virology (human papillomavirus) examinations to exclude cervical cancer (including precancerous lesions) before considering treatment of symptomatic cervical erosion.