Cervical cancer screening in Sweden 2014-2016

BACKGROUND: To enable incremental optimization of screening, regular reporting of quality indicators is required. AIM: To report key quality indicators and basic statistics about cervical screening in Sweden. METHODS: We collected individual level data on all cervical cytologies, histopathologies, human papillomavirus tests and all invitations for cervical screening in Sweden during 2013–2016. RESULTS: 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. CONCLUSION: Key quality indicators such as population coverage and follow-up rates were stable or improving, but there was nevertheless an unexplained cervical cancer increase.