Criteria and General Recomendations on Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening in Spain

Abstract

Cancer screening and primary prevention of cancer are efective strategies to reduce cancer mohidity and mortality. The experience gained in severa1 European countries about breast and cervical cancer has been growing in the last decades. This fact facilitates the adoption of the most convinient strategies to implement screening programmes in Spain. The Spanish Ministry of Health and Consumer Affaires set up a work group of experts and health managers to make recomendations and to define the basic criteria to take into account when planning and implementing these programmes. The article describes those recomendations as well as the priorities to be established regarding the target population, and the strategies to increase efflciency of those programmes. Recomendations were made according with scientific evidentes and the curent situation and resources in Spain.