Objective  To analyze screening results of different free cervical cancer screening strategies among 35- to 64-year-old women in Beijing.

  Methods  Cervical cytology, high-risk human papillomavirus (HR-HPV) test, and co-testing (combining the two detections) were adopted for cervical cancer screening free of charge among 182 119 women aged 35 – 64 years selected with random cluster sampling in 9 urban and rural districts of Beijing city from December 2014 to March 2015. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS 11.0.

  Results  The overall detection rate (505.9/100 000) of cervical cancer and precancerous lesion of co-testing screening was significantly higher than that of cervical cytology (334.6/100 000) and HR-HPV test (246.3/100 000) (P < 0.001); but there were no significant differences in detection rate and early detection rate of cervical cancer among the participants taking different screening schemes. The positive rate of HR-HPV or abnormal cervical cytology co-testing was 8.5%, which was significantly higher than that for preliminary HR-HPV and cervical cytology screening. Among all the participants, the detection rate of HR-HPV was 7.4%, with the detection rate of 0.53% for human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16) and 0.15% for HPV-18.

  Conclusion  The study demonstrates that adopting HR-HPV test is applicable in preliminary cervical cancer screening.