Cervical Cancer Screening in the Early Postvaccine Era

The Pap test is the foundation of cervical cancer screening in North America and most industrialized countries. It has been widely used in the United States since the 1950s. But are our current screening guidelines still justified? In this article, the author reviews the current recommendations for cervical cancer screening by the American Cancer Society (ACS) and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the evidence supporting them, reviews the relative efficacy of liquid-based cytology versus the conventional Pap smear, and discusses the role of HPV DNA testing in primary screening.