Evidence-based, alternative cervical cancer screening approaches in low-resource settings.

Abstract

Cervical cancer kills approximately 270,000 women worldwide each year, with nearly 85% of those deaths occurring in resource-poor settings.1 Use of the Pap smear for routine screening of women has resulted in a dramatic decline in cervical cancer deaths over the past four decades in wealthier countries. A key reason for continuing high mortality in the developing world is the shortage of efficient, high-quality screening programs in those regions. In 1999, five international health organizations came together to create the Alliance for Cervical Cancer Prevention (ACCP).* For the next eight years, with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the partners worked on a coordinated research agenda aimed at assessing a variety of approaches to cervical cancer screening and treatment (especially ones that may be better suited to low-resource settings), improving service delivery systems, ensuring that community perspectives and needs are incorporated into program design, and increasing awareness of cervical cancer and effective prevention strategies. Several outstanding issues were identified at that time. A general issue was a lack of consensus about the most effective and feasible options for improving cancer screening and treatment. Specific issues included uncertainty about the impact of simple screening methods and a screen-and-treat approach on cervical cancer incidence and mortality; the comparative performance of visual inspection methods of screening- visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) or Lugol's iodine (VILI)t-and new methods using human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing; the optimal ways to reduce false-positive results from visual inspection methods without producing more false-negatives; and any possible links between the use of cryo therapy and subsequent HIV acquisition.