The Pap test is first introduced into physician's offices, enabling doctors to detect and begin treating cervical cancer before it has a chance to spread. Over the following decades, the Pap test is credited with driving down cervical cancer death rates in the U.S. and other wealthy countries. Yet cervical cancer remains a major cause of death in low-resource settings around the world, where access to screening and treatment is limited.

British surgeon Ernst Wertheim introduces a new surgical technique, the 'Wertheim radical hysterectomy,' reporting that more than 30 percent of cervical cancer patients who underwent the surgery remained free of cancer after five years. This result is considered a monumental feat for the time, despite the fact that about 15 percent of women died during the procedure. The surgery, which involves the removal of the uterus, cervix and surrounding lymph nodes through an abdominal incision, soon becomes the standard treatment for uterine and cervical cancers. Over the following decades, however, it is refined to dramatically reduce the risk of complications, improve outcomes and leave more healthy tissue intact. The highly refined approach is still used today for patients with early-stage cervical cancer.