NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Just one "pass" at cervical cancer screening of women in developing countries will reduce cervical cancer mortality rates as much as 35%, according to a new study.

Dr. Paul Blumenthal and colleagues evaluated 3,665 women who were part of an 18-month cervical cancer screening program in Accra, Ghana. Clinicians trained in visualization of the cervix with acetic acid wash (VIA) carried out the screening, and cryotherapy was offered on the spot to women with positive VIA results.

Women were re-evaluated at three months and one year. Results of the study are published in the April issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

The positive test rate was 13.2%. Cryotherapy was performed immediately in 70.2% and delayed in 21%. Abnormalities were removed from 427 women.

There were no major complications with cervical screening. Post-cryotherapy follow-up was required in 5.6% in women who experienced abdominal cramping or other minor problems after the procedure.

Only 2.6% of women treated after the initial screening had positive test results one year later.

Women were largely accepting of cervical cancer screening, with more than 90% expressing satisfaction.

"In general, women were very accepting of both the screening and, for those that received it, the treatment," Dr. Blumenthal, now at Stanford University, California, told Reuters Health. "Our data reflect this and most women indicated that it wasn't as bad as they thought it might be."

"It will take a lot of political will and some financing, but if countries can even make one pass at screening women above the age of 35, estimates indicate the potential for a 35% reduction in mortality," said Dr. Blumenthal, who was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, when he carried out the study.

"New testing strategies such as a cheap, reasonably sensitive and reasonably specific (the good is not the enemy of the best) molecular test, such as a test for HPV, will change the landscape and lighten training demands as well as possibly make VIA a confirmatory test. But we are still waiting for such a test."

"There will always be places in which it might simply not be feasible to guarantee that both testing and treatment can take place in the same place at all times," Dr. Blumenthal said. "Some sort of centralization may be necessary. For example, it might be possible to do rural testing at fairly basic health centers but it may be necessary to concentrate treatment at the district (or similar) level. Still, at least the woman will know what needs to happen next at the end of a single visit, and will know where to go and when."