Cervical cancer is caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV).
This is a sexually transmitted virus that 80% of sexually active women will have in their lifetime. 200 different types of HPV have currently been discovered, and there is already a vaccine against the 9 most common ones to prevent transmission and thus, cervical cancer development.
However, many scientific studies are trying to find the most effective and economic way to detect the presence of any of these viruses in women.
This recent study, transcribed here, was able to find a way to diagnose, not only the presence of the virus in the blood but also those patients who had developed a premalignant lesion on the uterine cervix.
The latter, by the way, are only diagnosed by performing cervical cytology. This technique has been and is used worldwide as the method for early diagnosis for more than 60 years, showing a significant reduction in the incidence and death of cervical cancer.
However, it is also true that it is not a 100% reliable technique because it can fail in some cases and be unable to diagnose those premalignant lesions.
Thus the importance of these new findings that, while preliminary, open a very interesting research window targeting the definitive eradication of cervical cancer.