Extension of organised cervical cancer screening programmes in Italy and their process indicators: 2007 activity

Italian national guidelines recommend to Regions the implementation of organised screening programmes for cervical cancer. As in previous years since 1998, we collected from Italian organised cervical screening programmes aggregated tables of data in order to centrally compute process indicators. Data on women invited during 2007 and screened up to April 2008 were considered. In 2007, the target population of Italian organised screening programmes included 11,872,810 women, corresponding to 71.8% of Italian women aged 25-64 years. Uptake of invitation was 39.8%, with a clear North-South decreasing trend. It should, however, be considered that many women are screened outside the organised programmes. Of the women screened, 5.0% were referred for repeat cytology and 60.4 % of them complied; 2.4% of screened women were referred to colposcopy. Compliance with colposcopy referral was 82.3% among women referred because of ASCUS or more severe cytology and 89.5% among those referred because of HSIL or more severe cytology. The positive predictive value (PPV) of referral because of ASCUS or more severe cytology for CIN2 or more severe histology was 16.0%. The unadjusted detection rate of CIN2 or more severe histology was 2.9 per 1,000 screened women (3.1 standardised on the Italian population, truncated 25-64).