Cervical cancer prevention

Cervical cancer is the most common gynecologic malignancy worldwide, accounting for about 530,000 new cases each year. Most of these cases (90 %) occur in the developing world where it is the second most common malignancy in women after breast cancer. By contrast, in the United States of America (USA) cervical cancer has decreased dramatically since the introduction of cytologic screening (Pap smear), and is now a relatively infrequent neoplasm, especially among well-screened majority populations with access to health-care services. In the USA, an individual woman’s lifetime risk of developing cervical cancer is estimated to be 1 in 147. In 2012, it is estimated that there were approximately 12,170 new cases of cervical cancer and 4,220 deaths in the USA.