Henrietta Lacks: Understanding Cervical Cancer

What the NIH says

The National Institutes of Health Office of Science Policy states it directly. In 1951, Henrietta Lacks, a 31-year-old African American woman, went to Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital to be treated for cervical cancer.

Some of her cancer cells were used in research because of an unusual property: they kept growing and dividing in the laboratory instead of dying out. They were named HeLa, from the first two letters of her first and last names. NIH notes her untimely death shortly after.

She was not asked. Consent as we understand it now did not exist then, and the cells were taken and distributed without her knowledge or her family's.

NIH says HeLa cells have since underpinned several Nobel Prize-winning discoveries, and that its own analysis found more than 110,000 publications citing HeLa cells between 1953 and 2018. In 2013 NIH reached an agreement with the Lacks family on access to the HeLa genome data.

We state only what the NIH record says, and add nothing about her care.

The cancer she was treated for

Cervical cancer begins in the cervix, the lower narrow part of the uterus that opens into the vagina. Nearly all of it is caused by long-lasting infection with certain types of human papillomavirus, or HPV, a very common virus passed by skin-to-skin sexual contact.

Most HPV infections clear on their own within a couple of years. When one persists, it can gradually change the cells of the cervix. Those changes are called precancer, and they can be found and removed before any cancer exists.

None of that was known in 1951. HPV was not identified as the cause of cervical cancer until the 1980s. The Pap test was only beginning to spread through American hospitals when she was treated.

What changed since

Two things, and they compound.

Screening came first. A Pap test samples cells from the cervix and looks for abnormal ones. Newer programs test for HPV itself, which detects risk earlier still. Either way, treatment of a precancer prevents the cancer rather than treating it. Our guide to cervical cancer screening explains how the two tests differ.

Vaccination came second. The HPV vaccine protects against the types that cause most cervical cancer, and it works best when given before any exposure, which is why it is offered in early adolescence. Our page on the HPV vaccine covers who it is for.

Where cervical cancer stands now

The 2026 figures listed on SEER — 13,490 new US cervical cancer diagnoses and 4,200 deaths — are American Cancer Society projections. Five-year relative survival across all stages, for cases diagnosed in 2016 to 2022, is 68.8%.

Stage separates that widely. Localized disease, still confined to the cervix, carries 91.8% five-year relative survival. Regional disease, reaching nearby lymph nodes, carries 64.0%. Distant disease carries 20.5%. Forty-one percent of US cases are found while localized.

These are group figures over past years. They describe populations, not any individual, and they cannot be applied backwards to 1951, when neither the screening nor the treatments existed.

NCI describes treatment by stage. Very early disease may be handled with a cone biopsy, removing a cone of tissue from the cervix. Larger tumors may need a radical hysterectomy, which removes the uterus, cervix, upper vagina and surrounding tissue. Locally advanced disease is usually treated with chemoradiation, radiation given alongside chemotherapy. Our page on cervical cancer has more.

When to get checked

Precancerous cell changes almost never cause symptoms, which is exactly why screening exists. These are worth a prompt appointment:

• Vaginal bleeding between periods
• Bleeding after sex, or pain during sex
• Any vaginal bleeding after menopause
• Periods that become heavier or longer than your normal
• Pelvic pain
• Vaginal discharge that changes in amount, color or smell

Other conditions cause all of these. Getting them checked is how the other conditions get treated too.

What this does not mean

• The NIH record establishes that she was treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins in 1951. It does not describe her stage or her treatment, and this page does not infer them.
• Her cells were taken without consent. That is a fact about research ethics in 1951, not a reason to distrust a cervical screening appointment today.
• Survival figures from 2016 to 2022 reflect modern screening, imaging and chemoradiation. They say nothing about outcomes seventy-five years ago.
• HeLa cells behaved unusually in the laboratory. That is a property of a cell line in culture, not a description of how her cancer behaved in her body, and not something that can be generalized to anyone else's cancer.

Sources

• NIH Office of Science Policy, HeLa Cells: A Lasting Contribution to Biomedical Research — https://osp.od.nih.gov/hela-cells/
• NIH Office of Science Policy, Significant Research Advances Enabled by HeLa Cells — https://osp.od.nih.gov/hela-cells/significant-research-advances-enabled-by-hela-cells/
• NCI PDQ, Cervical Cancer Treatment (Patient Version) — https://www.cancer.gov/types/cervical/patient/cervical-treatment-pdq
• NCI PDQ, Cervical Cancer Screening (Patient Version) — https://www.cancer.gov/types/cervical/patient/cervical-screening-pdq
• NCI, Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccines — https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/infectious-agents/hpv-vaccine-fact-sheet
• SEER Cancer Stat Facts, Cervical Cancer — https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/cervix.html

How this article was prepared

An AI-assisted editorial system helped prepare this page. No named medical reviewer has reviewed it unless one is listed.

The National Cancer Information Foundation publishes Cancer Explained. This page is for learning. It is not medical advice and does not suggest a test or treatment.

See an error, old source, or unclear wording? Tell us.