Human papillomavirus infection (HPV) & screening strategies for cervical cancer

The incidence of cervical cancer is declining slowly necessitating concerted and organized control measures. Control through primary prevention has become a distinct reality though a prophylactic vaccine, which may take quite some time for its widespread use. Thus control of cervical cancer through secondary preventive measures is the only viable solution now. While high quality cytology screening may not be feasible for widescale implementation in developing countries because of lack of necessary infrastructure, quality control and poor sensitivity of cytology, alternative screening modalities such as visual screening techniques and HPV-DNA can be explored. Some technical and feasibility aspects of these three modalities are discussed.