Cervical cancer prevention: new opportunities for primary and secondary prevention in the 21st century

Cervical cancer is a relatively rare disease in countries that have instituted and maintained national screening programs, with call and recall of women at various intervals and built-in quality control with appropriate monitoring and evaluation. Unfortunately, this process has failed in most areas of the world where over 80% of new cases of cervical cancer are diagnosed. Cervical cancer affects women in the prime of their lives and causes premature and needless suffering and death in a critically important segment of the world's population-despite being the only cancer that can be prevented with simple testing. In the past 15 years, innovative approaches to both primary and secondary prevention of cervical cancer have been subjected to a number of large-scale scientifically valid and applicable studies that have opened the way for new approaches. This article reviews these new approaches.