This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Correction  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Related article  • Similar articles in JAMA  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Dr Goldie and colleagues¹ suggested that, in resource-poor countries, direct visual inspection (DVI) of the cervix and testing for human papillomavirus (HPV) may be reasonable alternatives to Pap smears in screening for cervical cancer. We have several concerns about this conclusion. First, the cost of a Pap smear is of central importance to cost-effectiveness analyses of cervical screening. Because Pap screening is labor intensive, salaries are a central component of its costs. Because of differences in professional fees, a Pap smear costs $15 in the United States² and less than $0.40 in developing countries such as Vietnam.³

Second, the Pap smear fee of $10 that Goldie et al assumed for South Africa seems high to us, and requires better documentation. The article by Goldie et al may reinforce incorrect beliefs that Pap screening in developing countries is prohibitively expensive. It is our impression that such beliefs have . . . [Full Text of this Article]

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter     What's this?

RELATED ARTICLE

Policy Analysis of Cervical Cancer Screening Strategies in Low-Resource Settings: Clinical Benefits and Cost-effectiveness
, , , , and
JAMA. ;285():3107-3115.
FULL TEXT  

THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES

DNA Ploidy Cytometry Testing for Cervical Cancer Screening in China (DNACIC Trial): a Prospective Randomized, Controlled Trial
Tong et al.
Clin. Cancer Res. 2009;15:6438-6445.
ABSTRACT | FULL TEXT