Cervical cancer screening in Sweden 2014-2016.

Abstract

To enable incremental optimization of screening, regular reporting of quality indicators is required. To report key quality indicators and basic statistics about cervical screening in Sweden. We collected individual level data on all cervical cytologies, histopathologies, human papillomavirus tests and all invitations for cervical screening in Sweden during 2013-2016. There were over 2,278,000 cervical samples collected in Sweden in 2014-2016. Organized samples (resulting from an invitation) constituted 69% of samples. The screening test coverage of all resident women aged 23-60 was 82%. The coverage has slowly increased for >10 years. There is large variability between counties (from 71% to 92%) over time. There were 25,725 women with high-grade lesions in cytology during 2013-2015. Only 96% of these women had a follow-up histopathology within a year. Cervical cancer incidence showed an increasing trend. Key quality indicators such as population coverage and follow-up rates were stable or improving, but there was nevertheless an unexplained cervical cancer increase.