Cervical Cancer Prevention in Low‐resource Settings

0020-7292/$ see front matter D 2005 International Federation of All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijgo.2005.04.002 DOI of original article: 10.1016/j.ijgo.2005.04.001. cancer, little headway has been made in preventing cervical cancer. This is largely because in those settings where the need is greatest, there have been almost no organized or consistent screening programs. As a result, cervical cancer remains the most common cause of cancer death among women in developing countries. Specifically there are almost 500,000 new cervical cancer cases each year, and well over 270,000 deaths. In simple terms this amounts to a cervical cancer death, a preventable death, every 2 min. Until recently, developing countries, perhaps more appropriately termed blow-resource settingsQ, have had little hope in terms of effectively implementing cervical cancer prevention programs. Conventional approaches, involving cytology and multiple visits before treatment can be offered, have proven to be unworkable in terms of achieving the coverage and treatment rates necessary to show impact. While the development of HPV vaccine also holds promise, it is not yet a reality and the vaccination programs required for its delivery will take additional time and resources to implement. The vaccine may also not address the large numbers of women who already have cervical disease. In the last several years, however, a number of groups have been attempting to demonstrate whether alternatives to the conventional approach might be workable in low-resource settings. The policy statement published in this edition of the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics is a reflection of the prevention-focused perspectives of The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and several of its worldwide organizational partners. This policy was endorsed by the FIGO Executive Board meeting in July 2004. Although much work remains to be done, and funding needs to be secured, there is every reason to believe that the approaches represented by International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics (2005) 90, 2—3