This already-common cancer — and its deadliness — will significantly increase in the next 25 years: study
'My doctor really wasn't super concerned with it,' Spickler, 24, recently recalled on TikTok. 'About a week later, I just had this sinking feeling that something was wrong, so I went and saw another doctor, who sent me to get an ultrasound.'
The exam revealed a polyp, and the Illinois teacher was shocked to be diagnosed with Stage 1 uterine cancer. She's not alone — cases of uterine cancer have been on the rise in the past decade, even as other cancers have become less common in the US.
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4 Uterine cancer cases and deaths have increased over the last decade, even as other cancers have declined.
saksit – stock.adobe.com
'Overall, uterine cancer is one of the few cancers where both incidence and mortality have been increasing,' said Dr. Jason D. Wright, chief of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Columbia University and lead author of a new study about uterine cancer.
'Understanding future trends will help inform the development of robust strategies to reduce the burden and improve outcomes.'
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The uterus is the pear-shaped organ where a baby grows in a woman. Endometrial cancer — which develops in the lining of the uterus — is the most common type of uterine cancer.
About 69,000 new cases of uterine cancer and nearly 14,000 deaths are expected this year, according to the American Cancer Society.
4 A doctor shows a patient a model of the uterus.
Evgeniy Kalinovskiy – stock.adobe.com
Cases increased an average of 0.7% each year from 2013 to 2022, and age-adjusted death rates rose 1.6% annually over the same period, according to the new study, published this week in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
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Wright's team projected a jump from 57.7 cases per 100,000 in 2018 to 74.2 cases in 2050 for white women. Deaths are estimated to increase from 6.1 to 11.2 per 100,000 in this group.
Black women are expected to see a spike from 56.8 cases to 86.9 cases per 100,000. Deaths are predicted to climb from 14.1 to 27.9 per 100,000.
'There are likely a number of factors that are associated with the increased burden of uterine cancer in black women,' Wright explained.
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'They more commonly have aggressive types of uterine cancer, face delayed diagnosis resulting in later-stage disease at diagnosis, and there are often delays in their treatment.'
The average age of uterine cancer diagnosis is around 60, with most women being postmenopausal.
4 This pelvis X-ray shows uterine cancer.
BSIP/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Risk factors include a family history of uterine cancer, hormonal imbalances and obesity.
A 2022 study identified a possible link between the use of chemical hair straightening products and an increased risk of uterine cancer. These products often contain endocrine-disrupting chemicals, potentially interfering with hormone levels.
The good news is that GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound may spur obesity rates to decline.
At the same time, a hysterectomy is known to reduce the risk of uterine cancer. Rates of the procedure, which is the removal of the uterus and cervix, are estimated to drop about 26% from 2020 to 2035.
4 Hysterectomy, shown here, is the primary treatment for uterine cancer.
Universal Images Group via Getty Images
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There is no standard screening test for uterine cancer in women without symptoms, which tend to be abnormal vaginal bleeding or discharge or pain during urination or intercourse.
Diagnostic tests may include a pelvic exam, an ultrasound and an endometrial biopsy.
Screening is most effective starting at 55, Wright said.
Hysterectomy is the primary treatment. Other options include radiation therapy, chemotherapy and hormone therapy.
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Spickler revealed on TikTok that she's done hormone therapy this year, but her cancer persists.
'Lowkey deserve to be spoiled going through all this,' she joked this week.
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CNN
an hour ago
- CNN
A couple tried for 18 years to get pregnant. AI made it happen
AI Maternal health Women's health FacebookTweetLink After trying to conceive for 18 years, one couple is now pregnant with their first child thanks to the power of artificial intelligence. The couple had undergone several rounds of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, visiting fertility centers around the world in the hopes of having a baby. The IVF process involves removing a woman's egg and combining it with sperm in a laboratory to create an embryo, which is then implanted in the womb. But for this couple, the IVF attempts were unsuccessful due to azoospermia, a rare condition in which no measurable sperm are present in the male partner's semen, which can lead to male infertility. A typical semen sample contains hundreds of millions of sperm, but men with azoospermia have such low counts that no sperm cells can be found, even after hours of meticulous searching under a microscope. So the couple, who wish to remain anonymous to protect their privacy, went to the Columbia University Fertility Center to try a novel approach. It's called the STAR method, and it uses AI to help identify and recover hidden sperm in men who once thought they had no sperm at all. All the husband had to do was leave a semen sample with the medical team. 'We kept our hopes to a minimum after so many disappointments,' the wife said in an emailed statement. Researchers at the fertility center analyzed the semen sample with the AI system. Three hidden sperm were found, recovered and used to fertilize the wife's eggs via IVF, and she became the first successful pregnancy enabled by the STAR method. The baby is due in December. 'It took me two days to believe I was actually pregnant,' she said. 'I still wake up in the morning and can't believe if this is true or not. I still don't believe I am pregnant until I see the scans.' Artificial intelligence has advanced the field of fertility care in the United States: More medical facilities are using AI to help assess egg quality or screen for healthy embryos when patients are undergoing IVF. There's still more research and testing needed, but AI may now be making advancements in male infertility, in particular. Dr. Zev Williams, director of the Columbia University Fertility Center, and his colleagues spent five years developing the STAR method to help detect and recover sperm in semen samples from people who had azoospermia. They were struck by the system's results. 'A patient provided a sample, and highly skilled technicians looked for two days through that sample to try to find sperm. They didn't find any. We brought it to the AI-based STAR System. In one hour, it found 44 sperm. So right then, we realized, 'Wow, this is really a game-changer. This is going to make such a big difference for patients,' ' said Williams, who led the research team. When a semen sample is placed on a specially designed chip under a microscope, the STAR system – which stands for Sperm Tracking and Recovery – connects to the microscope through a high-speed camera and high-powered imaging technology to scan the sample, taking more than 8 million images in under an hour to find what it has been trained to identify as a sperm cell. The system instantly isolates that sperm cell into a tiny droplet of media, allowing embryologists to recover cells that they may never have been able to find or identify with their own eyes. 'It's like searching for a needle scattered across a thousand haystacks, completing the search in under an hour and doing it so gently, without any harmful lasers or stains, that the sperm can still be used to fertilize an egg,' Williams said. 'What's remarkable is that instead of the usual [200 million] to 300 million sperm in a typical sample, these patients may have just two or three. Not 2 [million] or 3 million, literally two or three,' he said. 'But with the precision of the STAR system and the expertise of our embryologists, even those few can be used to successfully fertilize an egg.' It's estimated that the male partner accounts for up to 40% of all infertility cases in the United States, and up to 10% of men with infertility are azoospermic. 'This often is a really heartbreaking and shocking and unexpected diagnosis,' Williams said. 'Most men who have azoospermia feel completely healthy and normal. There's no impairment of their sexual function, and the semen looks normal, too. The difference is that when you look at it under a microscope, instead of seeing literally hundreds of millions of sperm swimming, you just see cell debris and fragments but no sperm.' Treatment options for azoospermia traditionally have included uncomfortable surgery to retrieve sperm directly from a patient's testes. 'A part of the testes gets removed and broken into little pieces, and you try to find sperm there,' Williams said. 'It's invasive. You can only do it a couple of times before there could be permanent scarring and damage to the testes, and it's painful.' Other treatment options may include prescription hormone medications – but that will be effective only if the person has an imbalance of hormones. If no other treatment options are successful, couples may use donor sperm to have a child. Williams said the STAR method can be a new option. 'It really was a team effort to develop this, and that's what really drove and motivated everybody, the fact that you can now help couples who otherwise couldn't have that opportunity,' he said. Although the method is currently available only at the Columbia University Fertility Center, Williams and his colleagues want to publish their work and share it with other fertility centers. Using the STAR method to find, isolate and freeze sperm for a patient would cost a little under $3,000 total, he said. 'Infertility is unique in a way in that it's such an ancient part of the human experience. It's literally biblical. It's something we've had to contend with through all of human history,' he said. 'It's amazing to think that the most advanced technologies that we currently have are being used to solve this really ancient problem.' It's not the first time doctors have turned to AI to help men with azoospermia. A separate research team in Canada built an AI model that could automate and accelerate the process of searching for rare sperm in samples from men with the condition. 'The reason AI is so well-suited for this is AI really relies on learning – showing it an image of what a sperm looks like, what the shape is, what characteristics it should have – and then being able to use that learning algorithm to help identify that specific image that you're looking for,' said Dr. Sevann Helo, a urologist at Mayo Clinic with specialty interest in male infertility and male sexual dysfunction, who was not involved in the STAR method or the research in Canada. 'It's very exciting,' she said. 'AI, in general, at least in the medical community, I think is a whole new landscape and really will revolutionize the way we look at a lot of problems in medicine.' The STAR method is a novel approach to identifying sperm, but AI has been used in many other ways within fertility medicine too, said Dr. Aimee Eyvazzadeh, a San Francisco-based reproductive endocrinologist and host of the podcast 'The Egg Whisperer Show.' 'AI is helping us see what our eyes can't,' Eyvazzadeh, who was not involved in the development of STAR, wrote in an email. For instance, AI algorithms, such as one called Stork-A, have been used to analyze early-stage embryos and predict with 'surprising accuracy' which ones are likely to be healthy. Another AI tool, CHLOE, can assess the quality of a woman's eggs before she may freeze them for future use. 'AI is being used to personalize IVF medication protocols, making cycles more efficient and less of a guessing game. It's also helping with sperm selection, identifying the healthiest sperm even in difficult samples. And AI can now even predict IVF success rates with more precision than ever before, using massive data sets to give patients personalized guidance,' Eyvazzadeh said. 'The common thread? Better decisions, more confidence, and a more compassionate experience for patients.' The new STAR system is 'a game-changer,' she said. 'AI isn't creating sperm – it's helping us find the rare, viable ones that are already there but nearly invisible,' she said. 'It's a breakthrough not because it replaces human expertise, but because it amplifies it – and that's the future of fertility care.' But there is also a growing concern that the rushed application of AI in reproductive medicine could give false hope to patients, said Dr. Gianpiero Palermo, professor of embryology and director of andrology and assisted fertilization at Weill Cornell Medicine. 'AI is gaining a lot of traction nowadays to offer unbiased evaluation on embryos by looking at embryo morphology,' Palermo said in an email. 'However, current available models are still somewhat inconsistent and require additional validation.' Palermo said the STAR approach needs to be validated and would still require human embryologists to pick up sperm and inject them into an egg to create an embryo for patients undergoing IVF. 'Maybe the AI addition may help to retrieve the spermatozoon a little faster and maybe one more than the embryologist,' said Palermo, who was not involved in the development of STAR but was the first to describe the method of injecting sperm directly into an egg. Since he pioneered that method, it has become the most-utilized assisted reproductive technology in the world. 'In my opinion, this approach is faulty because inevitably some men will have no spermatozoa,' Palermo said of the STAR method, 'doesn't matter how their specimens are screened whether by humans or a machine.'
Cosmopolitan
an hour ago
- Cosmopolitan
'Mineral sunscreens don't work for Black skin, and it's time for the fake inclusivity to stop'
Everyone has memories of being smeared with sunscreen as a kid, right? The formulas were thick, white and paste-like; the texture reminiscent of Philadelphia being rubbed into your skin. But I think we can all agree that SPF innovation has come a long way since then – now, the variety of textures (oils, waters and mists in abundance) and types of products (lip balms, sticks, powders, you name it) are better than ever. Because of the myriad of choice, you don't really have an excuse to not wear sun protection every damn day, and for the most part, I'm usually excited to try out a new SPF. That is, apart from mineral formulas. Despite the continued innovation, and various launches from a whole host of different brands, the powers that be still haven't nailed the mineral sunscreen with no white cast. Yes, there are some that only leave the faintest tinge. But on the deepest Black skin tone? It's still going to be noticeable. So, in 2025, is it time to just admit that mineral sunscreens with no white cast simply don't exist? I've written about the perils of using mineral sunscreens on Black skin dozens of times over the years, and, until the rise in popularity of chemical sunscreens, it was a minefield of 'just' how grey an SPF would leave you. Previously, I would happily act as a guinea pig to test out just how much a new launch would leave my face looking like the Moon emoji, to stop the community from buying something that wasn't right for our skin tone. Now, though, if you want to avoid that possibility altogether, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of chemical sunscreens that apply completely clear on Black skin. The conundrum is that chemical sunscreens can be irritating to sensitive skin types, due to the way that they process the sun rays, leaving those with hyper-sensitive Black skin in a pickle. 'Chemical formulas may irritate sensitive skin, and can sometimes be absorbed by the body,' says Dr Rachna Murthy, an Ophthalmologist, Oculoplastic & Reconstructive Surgeon, and Medical Aesthetic Practitioner. Chemical SPFs absorb the rays, turning them into heat on the skin before releasing it. So, if your skin is easily reactive, chemical SPFs can be a no-go, no matter what your skin colour is. If this is the case, some kind of mineral SPF, which uses physical blockers like zinc oxide and titanium dioxide as a barrier to the sun, will be a better choice. But due to the nature of the minerals used to successfully block the UVB and UVA rays, even with today's innovation, there is always a chance that will leaves a layer on top of dark skin. 'Because these minerals are naturally white and sit on top of the skin, they can leave a visible cast, especially on darker skin tones where the contrast is more noticeable,' says Dr Murthy. 'Advances in formulation have improved this, but some cast may still occur depending on the product.' Amy Ford, founder of one of Cosmopolitan's go-to SPF brands, Hello Sunday, agrees. 'It's simply part of how mineral filters work,' she says, 'and why it's difficult to guarantee a completely invisible finish across all complexions.' With this knowledge, surely it's down to brands to be transparent (excuse the pun) about the limitations in mineral formulas? Not only would it reduce the amount of regret buys, but it would also halt the white cast test videos that have multiplied since I came into the industry, with influencers like Dr Julian Sass and Alicia Lartey testing mineral sunscreens claiming to 'suit all skin tones' and subsequently calling out the brands that fail the test. 'Unfortunately, some brands, mainly those that don't specialise in SPF, aren't fully aware of the science behind the formulas, which is why we often see claims of [no] white cast that ultimately leave consumers disappointed. If an invisible application is your priority, a chemical sunscreen is your best bet,' says Ford. Ultimately, it feels like in order to appear inclusive, brands stick the claims of 'universal' on these launches, to fend off the idea that they're producing products that exclude Black and brown folks. But it does more harm than good, and if anything, highlights the shortsightedness of a brand who still believe that they can make a false claim, and won't face trial by social media as a result. As someone who is yet to meet a traditional mineral sunscreen that works for my Black skin and tones deeper than mine, I'm finally OK with admitting that they aren't for us. For me, from here on out, it's chemical and hybrid sunscreens all the way. Keeks Reid is the Beauty Director at Cosmopolitan UK. While she loves all things beauty, Keeks is a hair fanatic through and through. She started her career in beauty journalism in 2013 as editorial assistant at Blackhair and Hair magazines working her way to Acting Editor of Blackhair magazine at 23 years old. She spent much of her career working in trade hairdressing media at Hairdressers Journal, Salon International and the British Hairdressing Awards. Which is why she is a regular contributor to Cosmo's Curl Up franchise. Now, alongside her Cosmo work, she presents, creates content on social media and works with a range of beauty companies; from magazines and websites to beauty brands and salons.
Chicago Tribune
2 hours ago
- Chicago Tribune
Willie Wilson: Chicagoans cannot wait 50 years for clean water
I was astonished to learn the city has submitted a request to extend its replacement of lead service lines — 30 years beyond the 20 years the federal government has proposed. The city plans to complete 8,300 replacements annually for 50 years, wrapping up in 2076. This pace defies common sense and is unconscionable. The city must move with a sense of urgency in replacing lead pipes. We know that structures built before 1986 have service lines that allow lead to leach into the drinking water. Chicago has over 400,000 lead service lines. The majority are located in Black and brown communities. Health experts agree there is no safe level of lead exposure. Exposure to lead can cause cognitive damage, developmental delays, difficulty learning and behavioral problems in children. Could this be a factor contributing to Black and brown children being overrepresented in special education classes and the prison system? Children's exposure to small amounts of lead-tainted water causes them to appear inattentive, hyperactive and irritable. Higher levels of lead exposure may cause children to have problems with learning and reading. Last year, a study published in JAMA Pediatrics estimated 68% of children younger than 6 years old in Chicago are exposed to lead-contaminated drinking water, with 19% of affected children using unfiltered tap water as their primary drinking water source. Elected leaders should be held accountable for lead in tap water. The failure to move with urgency in replacing lead service lines will place children and adults at greater risk of drinking lead-tainted water. The Chicago Housing Authority was ordered to pay $24 million in a lead paint poisoning case that affected two young children. According to the Illinois Department of Public Health in 2023, about 3,200 children tested positive for elevated blood lead levels. Preventing residents from consuming toxic water will reduce health costs and a potential public health crisis. Why would government leaders knowingly allow residents to be poisoned by contaminated water? This was the case in the city of Flint, Michigan, where the drinking water became contaminated with lead because of a change in the water source. WBEZ-FM 91.5 reports that the federal rule requires Chicago to replace nearly 20,000 lead pipes a year beginning in 2027 — more than double the speed of the city's current plan. Among the cities with the highest number of lead service lines, only Chicago has yet to adopt the federal deadline. Clean water is essential to life; without it, we cannot survive. The water we drink helps regulate body temperature, aids in digestion, carries nutrients to cells, flushes out waste, enhances our skin and much more. It is important that residents have confidence in water from the tap. A 2023 Gallup poll found 56% of Americans overall said they worry 'a great deal' about pollution of drinking water. However, that sentiment was expressed by 76% of Black adults and 70% of Hispanic adults, compared with less than half (48%) of white adults. The bottled water industry in 2016 surpassed soft drinks to become the most consumed beverage in the country. 'Bottled water in the U.S. has been found to be no safer than tap water on average, contains higher levels of microplastics, is less strictly regulated and consumers are much less likely to find out if contamination does occur,' a 2023 research paper published in WIREs Water noted. Moreover, distrust in the quality of public tap water is driving the growth of bottled water. The following are suggestions to ensure clean and safe drinking water for all residents: Elected leaders should consider children and the most vulnerable when urging a delay to remove lead service lines from homes. Long-term exposure to lead can contribute to an increased risk of kidney, testicular and potentially other cancers. Also, lead exposure can lead to high blood pressure and reproductive problems. Clean water is a universal human right. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly formally recognized the right to safe and clean drinking water as a right inextricably linked to the full enjoyment of life and all human rights. The U.N. statement should be shared with elected leaders in Illinois. We cannot wait another 50 years to remove all lead service lines in Chicago. Every day we delay, the potential grows for more children to be poisoned by lead from their drinking water. I write this commentary to make those comfortable with allowing residents to drink lead-tainted water uncomfortable.
