Year: 2024
Type: book-chapter
Abstract: OverviewCervical cancer is a disease of inequality, as it remains a main cause of death in lowand middle-income countries (LMICs).This is a public health failure since primary (vaccination) and secondary (screening and treatment of precancer lesions) prevention methods exist.Tertiary protection is also essential, but surgical and radiation treatment, in addition to palliative care, are extremely limited in lowincome settings.In recent years, there has been increasing momentum in developing innovations in secondary prevention strategies, as these are the most feasible and accessible in low-income settings.This chapter will focus on innovations and future directions in screening, early detection, and treatment of cervical precancerous lesions. Cervical cancer worldwideIn high-resource settings, secondary prevention with cervical cytology (Pap smears) linked with timely treatment of precancer has led to sharp declines in cervical cancer mortality over the last century [1,2].However, the disease remains a main cause of death for women around the world, with nearly 90% of new cases diagnosed in LMICs [3].The discovery that human papillomavirus (HPV) is the necessary cause of this disease has led to revolutionary prevention strategies such as the prophylactic HPV vaccination, which currently targets seven 'high-risk' HPV (hrHPV) types responsible for approximately 90% of cervical cancers worldwide [4][5][6][7].There is promising evidence that a single dose of HPV vaccine yields protection against HPV 16 and HPV 18, the two types most frequently associated with development of invasive disease [8].A single-dose vaccine would greatly reduce cost and facilitate uptake of vaccination programs.However, prophylactic HPV vaccines do not treat pre-existing HPV infections and related conditions [9,10].Thus, even if HPV
Source: Institute of Physics eBooks
Language: English
Subfield: Epidemiology
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4399291328