Cervical cancer screening in rural India: Status & current concepts

Abstract

Cervical carcinoma is one of the most common and dreaded diseases of women, and in India, it accounts for 16 per cent of total cervical cancer cases occurring globally. The situation is more alarming in the rural areas where the majority of women are illiterate and ignorant about the hazards of cervical cancer. Different screening strategies such as rural cancer registries and camp approach for cancer detection have been found useful in minimizing the problem of cervical cancer in the villages. Various screening techniques such as visual inspection with acetic acid, visual inspection with Lugol's iodine, visual inspection with magnification devices-magnavisualizer, Pap smear and HPV-DNA testing have been suggested and tried under low-resource settings of our country, and cervical cytology screening has been found effective in reducing incidence of the disease. In the present review, feasibility of different screening methods has been assessed to find out the most suitable mode applicable at the rural level. Single lifetime screening particularly of high-risk women along with analysis of cost-effective tumour markers such as Argyrophilic nucleolar organizer regions (AgNOR) counts to discriminate high-risk dysplasia cases appears to be an appropriate approach in fighting against cervical cancer.

Comparison of two self‐sampling methods for human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing among women with high prevalence rates

“…1 Every year India reports more than one lakh new cervical cancer cases and is home to 16% of cervical cancer cases occurring globally. 2 Unlike the multifactorial etiology of many cancers, the established causal role of infection by human papillomavirus (HPV) in cancer cervix uteri has resulted in the development of more sensitive HPV-based screening assays for secondary prevention and prophylactic vaccines against HPV for primary prevention. An association with HPV has been reported in 83.2% invasive cervical cancers occurring in India.…”

Screening for non-communicable diseases

“…Educational model-based interventions promote self-care and create a foundation for improving the acceptance for cancer screening. [11][12][13][14] Screening policies should take into consideration socio-economic factors, which influence disease causation. 15 The introduction of innovative methods for screening of large population should be emphasized.…”

LZAP promotes the proliferation and invasiveness of cervical carcinoma cells by targeting AKT and EMT

“…Cervical cancer is the third most common malignant tumor of the female reproductive tract and the fourth largest cause of cancer-related death worldwide [1,2]. Most patients already have progressive disease at the time of treatment, and many treatment methods have not achieved satisfactory results [3,4]. Presently, the mechanisms of proliferation, invasiveness and metastasis of cervical cancer have not been fully clarified [5].…”