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Cervical Cancer Screening: Current Practices and Future Perspectives

A special issue of Cancers (ISSN 2072-6694). This special issue belongs to the section "Cancer Causes, Screening and Diagnosis".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 March 2026 | Viewed by 742

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
1st Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, “Papageorgiou” Hospital, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 56403 Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: gynecologic oncology; cervical cancer screening; HPV-related diseases

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Cervical carcinoma is caused by a persistent high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) infection. This scientifically proven statement has led, in recent decades, to the development of two very important innovations, i.e., the HPV vaccine and the HPV-based cervical cancer screening. The latter refers to the implementation of various screening tests, developed and validated in large-scale trials, based on the detection of HPV nucleic acids, into organized cervical cancer screening. 

In 2018, the WHO launched a strategy for the elimination of cervical cancer utilizing the abovementioned tools and novel advancements regarding the treatment of invasive cervical cancer. This strategy is based on three goals, namely, the achievement of a 90% coverage of girls up to the age of 15 with the vaccine against HPV, the coverage of 70% of women with a high-performance HPV-based screening test twice in their lifetime, and the proper treatment of at least 90% of women diagnosed with cervical (pre)cancer.

 This Special Issue will be dedicated to the second pillar of the WHO goals for cervical cancer elimination, i.e., to cervical cancer secondary prevention or cervical cancer screening, and will accept manuscripts investigating, but not being limited to, the following:

  • The performance of screening algorithms;
  • Novel screening modalities (for primary screening or triage);
  • Self-sampling;
  • Modelling on the projection of screening in the context of HPV vaccination;  
  • Screening for underserved populations;
  • Screening for immunocompromised populations;
  • Screening for populations vaccinated against HPV;   
  • Performance of AI-assisted colposcopy;    
  • Cervical precancer treatment and follow-up. 

I strongly encourage researchers in basic science, public health, or clinical science involved with HPV, cervical disease, and screening to submit their work to be included in this Special Issue; I hope that in this way we will be able to produce a collection of scientific publications presenting up-to-date and innovative research, which would reflect the present and future landscape of cervical cancer screening, from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

Dr. Kimon Chatzistamatiou
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Cancers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • cervical cancer screening
  • cervical carcinogenesis
  • human papillomavirus
  • HPV primary screening
  • self-sampling
  • triage of HPV-positive
  • post-conization follow-up
  • screening for immunocompromised women
  • screening for vac-cinated women

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

20 pages, 3357 KB  
Article
Noninvasive Cell Population Profiling of Normal and Dysplastic Cervical Biofluids by Multicolor Flow Cytometry as a Promising Tool for Companion Diagnostics
by Christoph Berger, Wolf Dietrich, Manuela Richter, Florian Kellner, Christian Kühne and Katharina Strasser
Cancers 2025, 17(20), 3328; https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers17203328 - 15 Oct 2025
Viewed by 525
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Cervical Pap smears are routinely used to detect cellular abnormalities as a cervical cancer screening tool and to assess the presence of HPV for risk stratification of the disease. Here, we aimed to extend the applications of this sampling procedure by [...] Read more.
Background/Objectives: Cervical Pap smears are routinely used to detect cellular abnormalities as a cervical cancer screening tool and to assess the presence of HPV for risk stratification of the disease. Here, we aimed to extend the applications of this sampling procedure by combining it with multicolor flow cytometry to characterize cell populations across cervical cancer disease stages. Methods: Cervical Pap smears from 30 patients with various disease stages ranging from normal to intraepithelial neoplasia up to treated cancers were analyzed as biofluids using multicolor flow cytometry. Individual samples were evaluated, and statistical analyses were performed over all sample stages. Cancer cell lines (CaSki, SiHa, HeLa, A549, U2OS) were examined as tumor cell controls. Results: Cervical biofluids were subdivided into cell populations according to their scattering properties and the expression of specific biomarkers: EpCAM and cytokeratin 8 for epithelial cells from tumors as well as healthy ectocervical and endocervical regions, and CD45 for immune cells. Discrimination of tumor cells was facilitated with cancer cell lines. Statistical analysis revealed that the composition of cell populations differs among disease stages, whereas treated cancer samples were consistently associated with a reduction in squamous epithelial cells and an increase in immune cells compared to normal samples. Conclusions: Herein, we identified the major cell populations in cervical biofluid samples and demonstrated that this method can detect changes in the cellular composition across different disease stages. This approach could be further exploited in cancer research and potentially serve as a companion diagnostic tool in tumor development, progression and during treatment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Cervical Cancer Screening: Current Practices and Future Perspectives)
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