Women’s cancers, including breast, cervical and ovarian cancer, lead to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths among women. Investments and programmes to prevent and treat women’s cancers such as cervical cancer have improved and led to strong reductions in high income countries. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide. Yet, because of poor access to screening and treatment services, the vast majority of deaths occur in women living in low- and middle-income countries. Effective methods for early detection of precancerous lesions using cytology (Pap smear) exist and have been shown to be successful in high income countries. However, competing health care priorities, insufficient financial resources, weak health systems, and limited numbers of trained providers have made high coverage for cervical cancer screening in most low- and middle-income countries difficult to achieve.
This WHO Guidance Note, that is part of the overall guidance WHO is issuing on Women’s cancers, is aimed at senior policy-makers and programme managers. It gives a broad vision of what a comprehensive approach to cervical cancer prevention and control means. It is not new guidance but summarizes existing WHO publications. In particular, it outlines the complementary strategies for comprehensive cervical cancer prevention and control, and highlights the need for collaboration across programmes, organizations, and partners.