Introduction:

Cervical cancer (CC) is a public health problem in both developed and undeveloped countries; besides it has socio-economic repercussions in women of reproductive age.

Objective:

To describe the characteristics of cervical cancer prevention, screening, diagnosis, and treatment methods.

Method:

An exhaustive bibliographic search was carried out within a period of 6 years (2016-2021) in the database of the Fundación Universitaria del Área Andina, using search engines such as Dialnet, Science Direct, Medline, Lilacs, and Scopus to review the concepts general information about cervical cancer.

Results:

The main etiology of cervical cancer is the human papillomavirus (HPV) which is a preventable virus through adequate education and information and follow-up of its precancerous lesions. It is the second most frequent cancer in Colombia.

Conclusion:

CC is a pathology that mainly affects women of reproductive age belonging to low socioeconomic strata. This type of cancer has high mortality rates, especially in developing countries and in high-risk HPV infections. Regarding the management of this pathology, public health strategies, such as vaccination and conducting screening tests continue being the fundamental pillars.

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