Guidelines of the Italian Society for Virology on HPV testing and vaccination for cervical cancer prevention

OBJECTIVE: To provide guidelines for health-care providers on strategies for cervical cancer prevention based on HPV testing and anti-HPV vaccination. OUTCOMES: Overall efficacy of different preventive strategies, assessing reduction in the incidence of invasive cervical cancer and precancerous lesions. EVIDENCE: Medline and the Cochrane Database were searched for articles in English on subjects related to HPVs, HPV diagnosis, HPV anogenital lesions, cervical cancer, HPV testing, and HPV vaccines, in order to elaborate an up-dated document. Relevant Italian Government publications and position papers from appropriate health and family planning organizations were also reviewed. VALUES: The quality of the evidence and ranking of recommendations for practice were rated using criteria defined by SIV, which were adapted from the Canadian Task Force on Preventive Health Care.