Most women who die from cervical cancer, particularly in developing countries, are in the prime of their life. They may be raising children, caring for their family, and contributing to the social and economic life of their town or village. Their death is both a personal tragedy, and a sad and unnecessary loss to their family and their community. Unnecessary, because there is compelling evidence, as this Guide makes clear, that cervical cancer is one of the most preventable and treatable forms of cancer, as long as it is detected early and managed effectively. Unfortunately, the majority of women in developing countries still do not have access to cervical cancer prevention programmes. The consequence is that, often, cervical cancer is not detected until it is too late to be cured. An urgent effort is required if this situation is to be corrected. This Guide is intended to help those responsible for providing services aimed at reducing the burden posed by cervical cancer for women, communities and health systems. It focuses on the knowledge and skills needed by health care providers, at different levels of care.

Written with the busy practice in mind, this book delivers clinically focused, evidence-based gynecology guidance in a quick-reference format. It explores etiology, screening, tests, diagnosis, and treatment for a full range of gynecologic health issues. The coverage includes the full range of gynecologic malignancies, reproductive endocrinology and infertility, infectious diseases, urogynecologic problems, gynecologic concerns in children and adolescents, and surgical interventions including minimally invasive surgical procedures. Information is easy to find and absorb owing to the extensive use of full-color diagrams, algorithms, and illustrations. The new edition has been expanded to include aspects of gynecology important in international and resource-poor settings.

This volume reviews the evidence for a causal link between sexually transmitted infection with human papillomavirus (HPV) and the occurrence of cervical cancer, from a variety of different angles. Epidemiological studies and clinical, pathological, and cytological aspects of HPV infection are reviewed. Modern methods for analyzing HPV-DNA types by molecular biological techniques are described, and the statistical problems to be overcome in epidemiological work are explained. The volume was prepared by a broad team of experts from around the world, who met in Copenhagen in March 1988 to reach a consensus on the present state of understanding and to establish directions for future work.

This volume contains the majority of the invited keynote lectures presented by experts at the Third International Conference on Controversies in Tumor Prevention and Genetics on 12-14 February 2004 in St.Gallen, Switzerland. Together, they reveal the latest findings in oncogenetics and its relations to recent and future developments in primary and secondary tumor prevention, especially in breast, colon and lung cancer. All contributions are written and have been critically reviewed by internationally recognised leaders in the field.

The last few years have seen enormous progress in terms of our understanding of the etiology and pathogenesis of cervical cancer (particularly with respect to the role of human papillomaviruses), and this has opened up new avenues for prevention. Additionally, there have been further refinements of existing technologies for cervical cancer control. To read about the state of the art on cervical cancer, health professionals have to locate individual articles and reviews of specific topics. In recognition of this, we propose to produce a book that will bring together in one place reviews of the contribution of descriptive and analytical epidemiological research to our understanding of cervical cancer etiology, as well as research on the application of that knowledge (plus knowledge gained from basic science investigations) to prevention through screening, chemoprevention, and vaccine development. The proposed book will include authoritative reviews by scientists working on the disciplines that are pertinent to the topic of the epidemiology and prevention of cervical cancer.

Globally, cervical cancer is the second leading cause of death for women with cancer. This is a tragedy in part because cervical cancer affects women usually a decade sooner than other cancers when those women are in their reproductive years and in the prime years in the labour force. While screening with the Pap test or other more recently evaluated tests have resulted in low cervical cancer rates in high resource countries, the lack of screening options in low resource countries means that many women present with symptoms reflective of advanced disease and so the chance of survival is low even with aggressive treatment. In this book, we have an international spectrum of authors from both high and low resource settings. We review the risk factors that lead to cervical cancer. We discuss novel screening techniques including HPV testing. We present the capacity for HPV vaccines to markedly reduce cervical cancer rates. Planning and implementing an organised cervical screening program and the assessment of quality indicators as a means of evaluation is outlined. In this book, we discuss novel operative options in early stage invasive cervical cancer as a means of preserving fertility. Also, we discuss the role of neoadjuvant chemotherapy as a means of down staging the disease. The role of surgically staging women to define more advanced disease is outlined including options for management of metastatic and/or recurrent disease with chemotherapy and targeted therapies. The special situation of women found to be pregnant during the diagnosis of pre-invasive or invasive cervical cancer; and the diagnosis and management principles are reviewed. Just as poliomyelitis has almost been eliminated in the lifetime of one generation, we look forward to the elimination of oncogenic HPV and its deadly ramifications particularly for women exposed to this virus.

In recent years, a number of chronic diseases have been linked, in some cases definitively, to an infectious etiology: peptic ulcer disease with Helicobacter pylori, cervical cancer with several human papillomaviruses, Lyme arthritis and neuroborreliosis with Borrelia burgdorferi, AIDS with the human immunodeficiency virus, liver cancer and cirrhosis with hepatitis B and C viruses, to name a few. The proven and suspected roles of microbes does not stop with physical ailments; infections are increasingly being examined as associated causes of or possible contributors to a variety of serious, chronic neuropsychiatric disorders and to developmental problems, especially in children. The Infectious Etiology of Chronic Diseases: Defining the Relationship, Enhancing the Research, and Mitigating the Effects, summarizes a two-day workshop held by the Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats to address this rapidly evolving field. Participants explored factors driving infectious etiologies of chronic diseases of prominence, identified difficulties in linking infectious agents with chronic outcomes, and discussed broad-based strategies and research programs to advance the field.