Cervical cancer is one of the diseases that kills the most women in the world. According to a report published by the World Health Organization (WHO), which reports the situation of cervical cancer in several countries, in 2020, more than 500,000 women were diagnosed with it and almost 342,000 died, most of them in poor countries. However, this is a disease that can be prevented with affordable and efficient tests and treatments.

The area of medicine that trains technical professionals for the early detection of cervical cancer is called cytotechnology. So that Brazil and the other countries that make up the Community of Portuguese Language Countries (CPLP) can offer this service with quality to the population, the Special Interest Group (SIG) in Cytotechnology was created, within the scope of the CPLP Telemedicine and Telehealth Permanent Work Group.

Within this Work Group, the cooperation between the National Cancer Institute (Inca) and the Lisbon Superior School of Technology resulted in the scientific article "Profile of competences for training in cytotechnology", published in the supplement of the Revista Saúde & Tecnologia, at the link : https://journals.ipl.pt/stecnologia/article/view/609.

According to researcher Simone Maia Evaristo, from the Inca Integrated Cytopathology Section, in some countries there is a lack of qualified professionals to provide this service to the population and, in others, there is no didactic material for updating and training these professionals. Therefore, the article in cooperation with Portugal becomes a milestone for public policies to combat cervical cancer.

“The article was prepared with the aim of facilitating cooperation between Portuguese-speaking countries both in training and updating, as well as in the construction of didactic material in Portuguese, which is scarce”, declares the specialist. “Another very important contribution of this work is the reinforcement of the qualified work force to reach the WHO goals of eliminating cervical cancer by 2030”, she reinforces.

SIG Cytotechnology is part of the University Telemedicine Network (RUTE), a collaborative health network coordinated by the National Teaching and Research Network (RNP). The Group has been meeting once a month since April 2022 via videoconference and is formed, in addition to Inca and the Lisbon Superior School of Technology, by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz), the Francisco Gentil Portuguese Institute of Oncology of Lisbon (IPO), among other institutes in Guinea Bissau, Mozambique, Cape Verde and Sao Tome and Principe.