What happens when organization of cervical cancer screening is delayed or stopped?

Objectives: Many countries rely on opportunistic screening, and data on its effectiveness are asked for. We assessed the impact on cervical cancer incidence and mortality of opportunistic screening compared with organized screening.

Setting: Women aged 30-64 in Denmark, 1973-2002; 16 counties with different screening strategies.

Effect of circulation and discussion of cervical smears on agreement between laboratories.

The study objective was assessing whether circulation of smears and discussion of those with differing interpretation can increase reproducibility between laboratories. The study included: the blind interpretation of a first set of 194 smears among seven laboratories, the discussion of smears with discrepant diagnoses during the previous phase and the blind interpretation of a second set of smears of same size and characteristics. After discussions, the overall weighted kappa increased in five laboratories (substantially in three : +50%, +27% and +20%).

Type specific persistence of high risk human papillomavirus (HPV) as indicator of high grade cervical squamous intraepithelial lesions in young women: population based prospective follow up study.

Objectives: To investigate the role of human papillomavirus (HPV) in the development of cervical neoplasia in women with no previous cervical cytological abnormalities; whether the presence of virus DNA predicts development of squamous intraepithelial lesion; and whether the risk of incident squamous intraepithelial lesions differs with repeated detection of the same HPV type versus repeated detection of different types.

Design: Population based prospective cohort study.

Setting: General population in Copenhagen, Denmark.