Integrating novel primary- and secondary-prevention strategies: the next challenge for cervical cancer control

The advent of prophylactic vaccines against human papillomavirus (HPV) infection, the cause of cervical cancer, and of new molecular methods to screen for this disease have become key developments in cancer control in the last 5 years. Although Pap cytology has had a significant history as a key method for cervical cancer screening, not all countries have benefited from this technology or have been able to implement the necessary public health steps to manage and treat the precancerous lesions that are detected by the Pap test. Testing of cervical exfoliated cells for DNA of oncogenic HPV types has been proven to be more accurate than Pap cytology. The latter test's high specificity makes it an ideal technique to triage women who are found to be HPV positive via a primary screen. HPV testing followed by Pap testing only for HPV-positive women is a promising strategy for screening women in the post-vaccination era.