Visitors and news

The Screening Group organized this meeting for all principal investigators, programme managers, and key collaborators from the study sites involved in this project, to discuss Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) recommendations, study progress, and recent findings.

Drs. Isabel Mosquera and Keitly Mensah have visited the county of Cluj, Romania, as part of the capacity assessment of cervical cancer screening related services in the CBIG-SCREEN project. They have conducted surveys in screening facilities and colposcopy and treatment facilities. This complements the information collected from the desk review and interviews with stakeholders, and will inform the capacity development response that will be prepared before the phase I of the study. Visit the CBIG-SCREEN project website: https://cbig-screen.eu/

SAGE’s review concluded that a single-dose Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine delivers solid protection against HPV, that is comparable to 2-dose or 3-dose regimens schedules. This could be a game-changer for the prevention of the disease; seeing more doses of the life-saving jab reach more girls. This new recommendation is based largely on research conducted by scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) over more than a decade.
View the WHO news release published on 11/04/2022: One-dose Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine offers solid protection against cervical cancer

Hannah Theriault is a student in the Master’s program of Public Health at Université Claude Bernard. She is currently working on the CanScreen5 project in Latin America and the Caribbean and assessing the barriers to effective cancer screening coverage.

This new report, Cervical Cancer Elimination in Africa : Where Are We Now and Where Do We Need to Be?, examines the status of current efforts towards elimination of cervical cancer in the African region, as well as necessary steps to achieve in Africa the targets set out in the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Strategy to Accelerate the Elimination of Cervical Cancer. The report was jointly produced by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC), IARC, and the African Cancer Registry Network (AFCRN). View the report

Dr Partha Basu, Prof Walter Prendiville and Eric Lucas visited the Delta office leaded by professor Grosbeck Parham in the Centre for Infectious Disease Research to discuss the progress, monitor the study, and review the data with the local team of the ongoing United States National Cancer Institute-funded project “Randomized controlled trial of the Liger Thermal Coagulator versus cryosurgery and versus large loop excision of the transformation zone (LLETZ) to prevent cervical neoplasia in VIA-positive women in low- and middle-income countries”.

The international federation of cervical pathology and colposcopy (IFCPC) in collaboration with the IARC organized the first African simulated workshop on electrical surgical excision using LLETZ on women screened positive with precancer cancer in the University teaching hospital (UTH), Lusaka, Zambia. This is part of a full course with theoretical, practical and clinical training and 16 trainees will now begin the practical course after this simulation. View the IARC news and the Youtube video

On April 26th, 15:00h-16:30h GMT, the International Cancer Screening Network (ICSN) will host a webinar on the impact of COVID-19 on cervical cancer screening in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Dr. Christine Campbell will moderate the session, which will offer an opportunity for the screening community to learn about, and reflect on, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cervical cancer screening with a focus on LMICs. A keynote presentation from Dr. Partha Basu, Head of the Screening Group at IARC, will provide a high-level overview of global issues and the possible impact on achieving WHO cervical cancer elimination goals, as well as learning from a specific screening context. Free registration

Dr Nadya Dimitrova is a medical doctor, graduated from the Medical University in Sofia, Bulgaria. She worked for the European Commission for projects related to breast cancer screening, cancer care quality assurance and cancer registries. She is glad to continue with her contribution to the cancer control activities in Europe and beyond as part of the IARC’s team.

During the EPR branch meeting, the preliminary results on the study of "Efficacy of therapeutic HPV vaccines on high-grade lesion of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia in phase II/III clinical trials" was presented by Li Zhang and Ibrahim Ahmadaye, and discussed within the branch. 11 studies were included to evaluate the efficacy of therapeutic vaccine on CIN2/3 women. The RR of regression rate for vaccine group vs control group was 1.39, and the corresponding number for HPV clearance was 2.10.