What is cervical cancer screening?

Screening is a strategy used in a population to detect a disease in individuals without signs or symptoms of that disease. The intention of screening is to identify disease in a community early, thus enabling earlier intervention and management in the hope to reduce morbidity and mortality from a disease. However, not all cancer types are suitable for screening; a “suitable” cancer type should meet the following criteria:

• morbidity of this cancer type is relatively high,
• an effective treatment for early stages of this cancer type is available,
• an affordable test exists for the detection of this cancer type.

Main benefits of screening tests involve significant improvements in disease prognosis, together with the prospect of less radical (mostly also less expensive) treatment which, in fact, is usually much more effective. The following screening programmes have proved to be highly effective:

1. cervical cancer screening,
2. breast cancer screening,
3. colorectal cancer screening.

Cervical cancer screening consists in regular gynaecological examinations aimed to reveal any precancerous changes in the cervix or early stages of cervical cancer. Abnormal changes in cervix mostly do not cause any symptoms or health problems, and women are at high risk if they don’t have regular checkups. Regular monitoring of cervical changes is therefore a very effective way of cervical cancer prevention.

 Last updated on 9 January 2015