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Prevention of cervical cancer in developing countries

Lynette Denny

Despite being a largely preventable disease, cervical cancer remains the most common cancer in women in developing countries, where screening is either limited or nonexistent. The health profile of women living in developing countries is dominated by the high prevalence of communicable and infectious diseases (TB, HIV and malaria) and maternal mortality. Diseases such as cancer of the cervix are barely recognized as a significant public-health problem. Another important barrier to establishing screening programs in poor countries is the requirements of cytology-based programs. Alternative protocols to cytology-based screening programs are explored in this paper, such as visual inspection and human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing. The advent of HPV vaccines has brought the issue of primary prevention of cervical cancer by vaccinating against the two most common types, HPV 16 and 18, into the spotlight, presenting a whole new range of challenges and opportunities.