Throughout the 20th Century, vaccines have proven successful in lengthening life expectations in different regions of the world. Since cervical cancer has become recognized as a potential complication of a genital infection, the prospect of vaccination offers new hope for global cervical cancer control.Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer among women worldwide, with an annual incidence of approximately half a million cases. Over 80 of these occur in developing countries, where case fatality rates are disproportionately higher than in developed regions i. An important reason for the relatively low cancer incidence in developed countries is that many of them have implemented cervical cancer prevention by means of programmed cytological screening. This has greatly reduced the cervical cancer incidence and mortality over recent decades 2.
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