Cervical cancer kills 270,000 women each year — mainly women in the developing world and in the prime of their productive lives. Yet cervical cancer is preventable by screening asymptomatic women for precancerous cervical lesions and treating the lesions before they progress to invasive disease. In other words, those deaths are largely preventable. Studies suggest that even if a woman were screened for cervical cancer only once in her lifetime between the ages of 30 and 40, her risk of cancer would be reduced by 25-36%.1
In developed countries, screening programs are in place to spot the signs of precancer and treat it early. These programs are generally built on a multi-visit, cytology-based screening approach — Pap smears followed by colposcopy and biopsy where indicated. Such programs require a high degree of organization and management, including actively inviting women who are at risk of the disease to be screened, ensuring the quality of testing and treatment and rigorously monitoring follow-up and care. In developing countries, on the other hand, such screening and treatment services generally are not available or accessible. And where they are available, the programs may be ineffective due to training, quality control or logistical challenges.2,3
This brief summarizes the current evidence on various options, namely cervical cytology (Pap test), HPV (human papillomavirus) DNA testing and visual