Cervical cancer remains the most common
cancer among women living in developing countries, largely because of the failure either to initiate or sustain effective
cervical-cancer screening programmes. This potentially preventable and curable
cancer continues to cause high mortality among relatively young women residing in low-resource countries. Cytology as a screening test, linked with a robust healthcare infrastructure, has significantly affected
cervical cancer prevention in countries that have had sufficient resources to establish and sustain well-conducted programmes. The failure to establish such programmes has stimulated a large body of research into alternative screening tests and approaches to
cervical-cancer prevention. Two of the most recent research methods have been visual inspection with
acetic acid and molecular testing for high-risk types of human papillomavirus
deoxyribonucleic acid. Visual inspection with
acetic acid has shown a great deal of promise in cross-sectional studies; however, in randomised-controlled trials, it has been shown to be significantly less effective in reducing
cervical cancer or its precursors. The development of point-of-care human papillomavirus or other highly sensitive tests for the prevention of
cervical cancer is imperative. It has also been clearly shown that linking testing or screening to treatment (so-called 'screen and treat') without the intervention of colposcopy or the need for sophisticated laboratories may potentially prevent
cervical cancer in large numbers of women.