Women who have 'spotting' or bleeding after menopause should not ignore it as it may be symptomatic of serious underlying illness, including cancer.
'Bleeding is an early sign of genital tract malignancy,' said Yuen Pong-mo, honorary clinical associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at Chinese University. 'If we can diagnose the condition earlier and if it is at an early stage, the prognosis is much better.'
Last year about 700 women attending eastern New Territories hospitals complained of vaginal bleeding both before and after menopause, accounting for 10 per cent of all new gynaecological outpatient visits at the area's hospitals.
In five to 15 per cent of these cases, the bleeding was caused by genital tract cancer.
'The most important thing that we do about post-menopausal bleeding is to make sure that they do not have cancer. Four per cent of the cases are cancer. In western countries it can be a 10 to 15 per cent cancer rate,' Professor Yuen said.
But he said in many cases, the women required several clinic visits for a series of tests before they could be diagnosed correctly.