Patterns of cervical cancer mortality in young adult women in three countries of the European Union: Finland, Poland, and Latvia

At the beginning of the 21st century, our knowledge on the biology, etiology, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of cervical cancer is close to complete. Essential tools for effective screening of cervical cancer already exist and are improving each year. Deaths from cervical cancer have become very rare in many parts of the world. Despite this, there are still countries, in which cervical cancer mortality levels have increased in the last decades. This is partly because the implementation of an effective cervical cancer programme is an extremely complex undertaking, from the organizational, medical, social, and economic points of view. Finland is one of the European countries, which have been able to develop some of the most optimal cervical cancer screening programmes. On the other hand, some countries of Central and Eastern European region have not been able to overcome the substantial challenges involved in building such a programme, and struggle with persistently high and often growing cervical cancer rates. In Poland, cervical cancer mortality rates have been declining since 1990s, but new challenges have emerged. Significant differences in mortality levels between social groups have arisen, as have the first symptoms of a lack of a sustainable population-based cervical cancer screening strategy in Poland.