HPV Screening in Nicaragua

Cervical cancer is the leading cause of mortality due to a malignant neoplasm for young women in Latin America and the leading cause of cancer among women of any age in Nicaragua. Additionally, cervical cancer is the third most common cause of cancer death in females worldwide. This paper will focus on just the screening aspect of prevention. There are also vaccines now available for preventing certain oncologic strains of HPV which ultimately leads to prevention of cervical cancer. There is not yet an organized program offering HPV vaccination in Nicaragua due to the high cost of the vaccine. The aim of this paper is to look for the most efficient and effective way to prevent HPV and cervical cancer in Nicaragua. While HPV DNA testing with cryotherapy was the best practice found in the research, in reality this was not proven to be an effective strategy for cervical cancer prevention in Nicaragua. Due to cost and the resources available, Pap testing and VIA are the preferred methods for screening for cervical cancer over HPV DNA testing