Abstrak: Recent guidelines from the American Cancer Society, the American Society for Colposcopy and Cervical Pathology, and the American Society for Clinical Pathology recommend cessation of cervical cancer screening at age 65 years for women with an “adequate” history of negative Papanicolaou smears. In our view, those who formulated these guidelines did not consider a growing body of evidence from nonrandomized studies that provides insight into the efficacy of cervical cancer screening among older women. First, older women are not at indefinitely low risk following negative screening results. Second, recent data from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Sweden suggest that screening of older women is associated with substantial reductions in cervical cancer incidence and mortality, even among previously screened women. It may be that after consideration of the reduced incidence of (and reduced mortality from) cervical cancer that may result from screening older women, the harms and economic costs of screening will be judged to outweigh its benefits. However, it is essential to consider the now-documented benefits of cervical screening when formulating screening guidelines for older women, and recommendations that do not do so will lack an evidence base.

Abstrak: Persistent cervical infections by approximately 15 carcinogenic genotypes of human papillomavirus (HPV) cause virtually all cases of cervical cancer and its immediate precancerous precursor, cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 3 or carcinoma in situ. As is shown in a meta-analysis by Koshiol et al. (Am J Epidemiol 2008;168:123–137), detection of carcinogenic HPV viral persistence could be used to identify women at the greatest risk of cervical precancer. Specifically, women who have carcinogenic HPV infection that persists for at least 1 year versus those whose infections clear are at significantly elevated risk of having or developing cervical precancer. However, before detection of HPV persistence can be used in cervical cancer screening, several considerations need to be addressed: 1) validation and Food and Drug Administration approval of a reliable HPV genotyping test, 2) rational clinical algorithms based on risk of precancer and cancer for the clinical management of HPV persistence, 3) clinician and patient acceptability of monitoring of HPV infections (including not responding excessively to the first positive HPV test and waiting 1–2 years for infections to either persist or resolve), and 4) patient compliance with recommended follow-up. Investigators will need to address these and other key issues in order to realize the potential utility of HPV viral monitoring for improving the accuracy of cervical cancer screening.