Cervical cancer · Guide
Cervical cancer explorer: guide
Show the cervix within the body, enter the tumour’s place, size and spread from the report, explain the treatment and share a matching picture sheet.
For patients and families
Look at the picture together
The picture opens with the whole body. Choose Pelvis to see the womb and the cervix between the bladder and the bowel, then Cervix to move close. The cervix is the neck of the womb, at the top of the vagina. Drag to turn it and scroll or pinch to zoom.
Show what your team has found
Your clinician can enter where on the cervix the tumour is, its size, how far it has spread and whether a lymph node looked abnormal. The slice in the corner shows the cervix with the tissue beside it, as an MRI scan would, seen from your feet. The shape is schematic, not a copy of your scan.
Cervical screening (a smear test) looks for changes that could lead to cancer. This explorer is for talking about a cancer that has already been found.
Things you could ask
“Can you show me where it is?”
“Has it spread outside the cervix?”
“Can you show me what the treatment would involve?”
Take it home
Ask for a picture sheet with the views you discussed, your team’s explanation, what the cervix does, where to find help and the words used. A QR code reopens the same model settings on your phone. Names, notes and contact details are never included in that code or saved online.
For clinicians
Start with orientation
The explorer adds the cervix (with the external os and endocervical canal), uterus, vagina with its fornices, fallopian tubes, ovaries, parametria, ureters, bladder, pelvic side walls and pelvic lymph nodes to the shared female pelvis, rectum, sacrum and body from the rectal and womb explorers. Adding a tumour opens a sagittal cut-away that keeps the half holding the tumour.
Set up from the report
| Control | What to set |
|---|---|
| Where on the cervix | Anterior lip, posterior lip, left or right side, or circumferential around the os. |
| Longest diameter | 2–100 mm, drawn along the cervical canal. Above 35 mm the tumour is larger than the model cervix and the summary says its shape and position are approximate. |
| How far it has spread | Confined to the cervix; upper two-thirds of the vagina; parametrium; lower third of the vagina; pelvic side wall; bladder or rectal mucosa, as written in the report. The FIGO equivalents are shown for orientation only; the model does not assign a stage. |
| Side of spread | Right, left or both, for parametrial or pelvic side wall spread. |
| Lymph nodes | An abnormal pelvic lymph node, when the report describes one; its side is illustrative. Para-aortic nodes are not shown. |
Explain a selected plan
Cone biopsy or LLETZ colours a cone around the os teal. Radical trachelectomy colours the cervix, vaginal cuff, parametria and pelvic nodes teal; After surgery shows the uterus joined to the vagina with a cerclage. Radical hysterectomy colours the uterus, cervix, tubes, vaginal cuff, parametria and pelvic nodes teal, with the ovaries conserved; After surgery shows the closed vaginal vault. Chemoradiotherapy with brachytherapy shows an illustrative treated volume and an intracavitary applicator. The explorer does not suggest which treatment fits a stage. Systemic treatment for metastatic disease is not modelled.
Limits
- One tumour is illustrated. Spread is drawn along illustrative paths; depth of stromal invasion, lymphovascular space invasion, hydronephrosis and distant spread are not shown.
- The shapes of the cervix, parametria and side walls, the lymph node positions and the treated volume are schematic.
- Screening, colposcopy and pre-cancerous changes (CIN) are not covered.
Sources and review
- NHS: cervical cancer
- The Eve Appeal
- FIGO 2018 staging of cancer of the cervix uteri.
Practising gynaecological oncologist review is still needed for clinical teaching use. Please send corrections through feedback.