"THE DUALITY BETWEEN THE IMPORTANCE OF EARLY CERVICAL CANCER DIAGNOSIS AND THE PERSISTENCE OF CASES IN BRAZILIAN HEALTHCARE: A REFLECTION OF PRIMARY CARE FRAGILITY?"

Abstract

This article sought to highlight that cervical cancer still constitutes one of the neoplasms that most affects women in public health in Brazil due to failures in Primary Health Care (PHC), aiming to analyze the determining factors that delay its early prevention. The methodology encompasses a literature review conducted in the PubMed/MEDLINE database and the Virtual Health Library (VHL). Of the 186 articles identified, those published in the last 5 years, in English and Portuguese, and available in full text for free were selected. Duplicate studies and those that did not address the proposed topic were excluded. A final analysis was performed on 27 articles. The studies revealed that the effectiveness of prevention in PHC is frequently threatened by communication failures, delays in following up on abnormal test results, operational barriers in general practice, and socioeconomic and geographic inequalities. Therefore, actions such as improving structural and operational organization, effectively integrating vaccination with next-generation screening, and enhancing clinical follow-up workflows are essential to ensuring better health for women.