Cancer of the Uterine Cervix

Invasive cervical cancer is uncommon in the United States, with an incidence of 15,800 cases and 4800 deaths in 1995.1 This relatively low incidence is largely due to the effectiveness of screening programs that assess cervical cytology by Pap smear. On a global scale, however, cancer of the cervix is a major cause of death, especially in Third World countries, where such screening is often not routinely performed. Pap-smear screening is designed to detect precursor lesions in cervical epithelium, which may antedate the development of invasive cancer by several years. In contrast to other screening strategies, such as mammography, which . . .