Screening Women for Anal Cancers: Guidance for Health Care Professionals

Anal cancer is rare in the general population but is steadily increasing in incidence over the past decade especially in women. Identification and screening of women with high risk facilitates detection of anal precancer and early-stage cancer, improves survival, and potentially uses less invasive therapies compared with the conventional chemoradiation treatments used for advanced cancers. No recently published guidelines currently describe details about screening women for anal squamous cell cancer (ASCC). The available evidence supports the existence of groups of women with higher prevalence of ASCC (e.g., women with human immunodeficiency virus, immune suppression, or previous lower-genital high-grade lesion or cancer) who would likely benefit from screening with some combination of anal cytology and human papillomavirus testing. Additional research is needed to establish the cost-effectiveness and the influence of screening on ASCC mortality rates.