For Europe as a whole, there are an estimated 60,000 new cases and 30,000 deaths from cervical cancer every year(1) which makes cervical cancer the 7th most common cancer in European women(2). However, cervical cancer has a younger age of onset than most adult cancers and it is therefore the 2nd most common cancer in women from 15-44 years of age.

Cervical cancer rates vary widely across Europe with women from Eastern Europe having far higher rates. The east-west gradient for cervical cancer can be clearly seen in Figure 1 below where the EU 10+2 member states and non-EU European countries have incidence and mortality rates that are much higher than the EU 15. Further, women in Romania have an 11 times increased risk of dying from cervical cancer by 74 years of age than women in Finland, while the increased risk for women in Lithuania is almost 8 times higher and that for women in Bulgaria is 7 times higher(3,4).

The differences in cervical cancer rates currently seen across Europe can be attributed to i) the prevalence of infection with one or more of the 15 high-risk types of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) and ii) the presence or absence of effective cervical cancer screening programmes.