[Screening for cervical cancer, human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination]

Cervical cancer screening is widely used worldwide, which led to a significant decrease both in incidence and mortality of the disease in several countries. Cervical cancer screening was introduced in the 1950s as opportunistic method for secondary prevention of cervical cancer in Hungary, later, however, became a part of National Immunization Program. Detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) is the first-line method of screening in several countries before cytology, which has been proposed to be introduced in Hungary by several groups. The incidence and mortality of cervical cancer can be reduced further or even completely eliminated by the application of HPV vaccines first by 2- , followed by 4- and recently by 9- valent HPV vaccines. Nationwide vaccination program for 12-year-old girls was introduced in 2014 which was extended for boys of the same age in 2020 involving 60-80% of the target population in Hungary. The next step would be to extend the vaccination program as catch up and pre- or postconization vaccination to approach the WHO goal for elimination of HPV infection and cervical cancer.