New guidelines for the screening and treatment of cervical cancer

Cervical cancer (cancer of the lower part of uterus), leads to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths among women. Whilst investments and cytology-based programmes to prevent and treat cervical cancer have improved and led to strong reductions in high-income countries, in low-and middle-income countries, deaths among women remain high.
In low- and middle-income countries, cytology-based programmes are very difficult to implement and where they are implemented, the screening coverage is low. Therefore, new strategies for screening and treatment had to be considered in order to increase coverage in all countries and ultimately decrease cervical cancer incidence and mortality.
For the first time the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued recommendations, based on the available evidence, on the use of a screen and treat approach using visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) for screening and treatment with cryotherapy or when feasible Human Papillomavirus (HPV) testing followed by treatment.
As a result of a demonstration project, visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) cryotherapy have been incorporated into the cervical cancer-prevention services in existing reproductive health services in several countries. VIA is an attractive alternative to cytology-based screening in low-resource settings. Similarly, cryotherapy has been selected as the treatment option for the eligible test-positive cases.
The alternative simple and safe cervical cancer-prevention techniques simplify the process and render it feasible and acceptable to women and providers in low-resource settings.
Scaling-up programmes will facilitate extension of cervical cancer-prevention services to the target population in both urban and rural areas through development of referral linkages with high-level health facilities.
These new guidelines combined with HPV vaccination, support the commitment of Member States to implement cervical cancer prevention programme as part of the 2013-2020 Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases and will help ensure that cervical cancer ceases to be a public health problem.