Cervical cancer is the world’s fourth most prevalent malignancy among women. More than 600,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2020, and 342,000 died worldwide. The World Health Organization adopted an intervention strategy which includes 90% of girls fully vaccinated by the age of 15 years, 70% of women screened by the age of 35 years and again by the age of 45, treatment of the 90% of women with the pre-cancer condition and the successful management of 90% of women with invasive cancer.
Eliminating all types of cancer is an impossible mission, yet this mission is a reality for cervical cancer which is preventable by HPV vaccination and by screening and it is successfully treated and managed in most of cases, after diagnosis.
High-income countries have achieved tremendous progress in this respect. Cervical cancer is no longer one of the top 20 causes of death in several parts of the world including North America which has an age-standardized incidence rate of 6.2 per 100,000 person-years, and the Australia/New Zealand region which has a 5.6 incidence rate.
The incidence in low and middle-income countries is double than that of high-income countries. Women in low and middle-income countries accounted for more than 90% of cervical cancer deaths worldwide. This is due mainly to:
1. Significant barriers of access, acceptability, and adoption to any cervical cancer prevention strategy (vaccination and screening).
2. Low screening rates in those areas of poverty and marginalization, even in high-income countries.
3. Other barriers such as social determinants of health; low health literacy, reluctance to have a pelvic evaluation, the stigma associated with sexually transmitted diseases like HPV.
With this Research Topic, we would like to provide a platform to explore and understand the above-mentioned obstacles and lead the way to the use of new tools for cervical cancer prevention also in the area of new technology and artificial intelligence and consider practical prevention measures which should be considered and implemented in Low and Middle-Income Countries to achieve cervical cancer elimination.
The main areas to be explored in this Research Topic in the areas of health education, and new technologies are the following:
• Development of a single-dose vaccine against HPV.
• Development of new tools such as rapid, single-use, molecular HPV tests, which could enable community-based testing with self-collected samples, circumventing many of the barriers to existing tests.
• Implementation of screenings in low-income countries and inclusion of cervical cancer control as part of the primary healthcare and reproductive health services.
• Machine-learning-based approaches and digital cytology.
• Implementation of training programs for community health workers and medical education in low and middle-income countries which can be instrumental to the acceptance and adoption of a screening test.
Authors are welcome to submit different kinds of manuscripts, with particular interest in original research articles and systematic reviews.
Cervical cancer is the world’s fourth most prevalent malignancy among women. More than 600,000 women were diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2020, and 342,000 died worldwide. The World Health Organization adopted an intervention strategy which includes 90% of girls fully vaccinated by the age of 15 years, 70% of women screened by the age of 35 years and again by the age of 45, treatment of the 90% of women with the pre-cancer condition and the successful management of 90% of women with invasive cancer.
Eliminating all types of cancer is an impossible mission, yet this mission is a reality for cervical cancer which is preventable by HPV vaccination and by screening and it is successfully treated and managed in most of cases, after diagnosis.
High-income countries have achieved tremendous progress in this respect. Cervical cancer is no longer one of the top 20 causes of death in several parts of the world including North America which has an age-standardized incidence rate of 6.2 per 100,000 person-years, and the Australia/New Zealand region which has a 5.6 incidence rate.
The incidence in low and middle-income countries is double than that of high-income countries. Women in low and middle-income countries accounted for more than 90% of cervical cancer deaths worldwide. This is due mainly to:
1. Significant barriers of access, acceptability, and adoption to any cervical cancer prevention strategy (vaccination and screening).
2. Low screening rates in those areas of poverty and marginalization, even in high-income countries.
3. Other barriers such as social determinants of health; low health literacy, reluctance to have a pelvic evaluation, the stigma associated with sexually transmitted diseases like HPV.
With this Research Topic, we would like to provide a platform to explore and understand the above-mentioned obstacles and lead the way to the use of new tools for cervical cancer prevention also in the area of new technology and artificial intelligence and consider practical prevention measures which should be considered and implemented in Low and Middle-Income Countries to achieve cervical cancer elimination.
The main areas to be explored in this Research Topic in the areas of health education, and new technologies are the following:
• Development of a single-dose vaccine against HPV.
• Development of new tools such as rapid, single-use, molecular HPV tests, which could enable community-based testing with self-collected samples, circumventing many of the barriers to existing tests.
• Implementation of screenings in low-income countries and inclusion of cervical cancer control as part of the primary healthcare and reproductive health services.
• Machine-learning-based approaches and digital cytology.
• Implementation of training programs for community health workers and medical education in low and middle-income countries which can be instrumental to the acceptance and adoption of a screening test.
Authors are welcome to submit different kinds of manuscripts, with particular interest in original research articles and systematic reviews.