Women still dying of cervical cancer
A University of Washington expert warned that cervical cancer deaths persist despite vaccines and screening—largely due to access gaps, stigma, and underutilization of services. The piece pushes broader screening access and operational readiness for varied specimen types in clinical practice. (ijpr.org)
About 350,000 women die of cervical cancer worldwide each year, a figure Eckert cites in her book and interviews. (ijpr.org)) Eckert frames cervical cancer as roughly 90% preventable through vaccination and screening, a claim she advances in Enough: Because We Can Stop Cervical Cancer. (drlindaeckert.com)) In the United States approximately 13,000 new cervical cancer cases and about 4,000 deaths are recorded annually, with recent CDC reporting used for national estimates. (cdc.gov)) U.S. professional guidance and advisory groups note that most U.S. cervical cancers occur in people who are unscreened or under‑screened, concentrating mortality in underserved populations. (asccp.org)) The FDA expanded approvals to allow self‑collected vaginal HPV specimens in health‑care settings on May 17, 2024, creating a regulatory pathway for clinic‑based self‑sampling. (tuftsmedicine.org)) An Enduring Consensus committee published practice recommendations on February 21, 2025, endorsing self‑collected vaginal specimens as acceptable for average‑risk primary HPV screening and detailing follow‑up algorithms. (asccp.org)) Two HPV assays with specified collection devices—BD Onclarity with the Copan swab and Roche cobas with the Copan swab or the Evalyn/Evelyn brush—were included among FDA‑cleared self‑collection combinations. (clinician.com)) Clinical laboratories and reference centers such as ARUP have started accepting select self‑collected vaginal specimens for HPV testing, reflecting laboratory uptake of the new approvals. (aruplab.com)) Laboratory‑focused reviews recommend method evaluation for dry swabs and alternative transport media, with analytical and clinical validation needed before routine reporting of self‑collected samples. (journals.asm.org)) Implementation briefs for laboratorians list operational steps—workflow redesign, specimen accessioning changes, regulatory documentation, and QA procedures—as prerequisites to scale self‑collection programs in health systems. (myadlm.org)) Primary high‑risk HPV testing has higher sensitivity than cytology for CIN2+ detection, supporting the shift to HPV‑first screening algorithms that underpin the self‑collection recommendations. (thelancet.com)) Longitudinal surveillance shows HPV vaccination has reduced cervical precancer incidence in vaccinated cohorts but studies and JAMA analyses report persistent rural and socioeconomic gaps in vaccine and screening coverage. (jamanetwork.com))
