Secondary prevention of cervical cancer:: current aspects of diagnosis

In spite of reduction of incidence and mortality of cervical cancer, cytologic screening has been pushed to its limits. Molecular biological detection of HPV-DNA can increase sensitivity of detection of precancer and cancer and can be used in woman with atypical cytologic findings or a history of treatment for cervical intraepithelial neoplasia to identify patients with high-grade precancerous lesions. Liquid-based cytology results in improved quality of the cytologic specimen but an improvement of screening results has not yet been convincingly documented. For evaluation of the progression potential of preneoplastic lesions induced by HPV infections, a number of HPV-associated and non HPV-associated biomarkers are available. Detection of p16 overexpression is a promising marker which can be used in screening and for prognostic purposes.