Depending on several factors and the location of the infection, CIN can start in any of the three stage, and can either progress, or regress. The grade of squamous intraepithelial lesion can vary.

CIN is classified in grades:

99% of cervical polyps will remain benign and 1% will at some point show neoplastic change. Cervical polyps are unlikely to regrow.

Treatment for CIN 1, which is mild dysplasia, is not recommended if it lasts fewer than 2 years. Usually when a biopsy detects CIN 1 the woman has an HPV infection which may clear on its own within 12 months, and thus it is instead followed for later testing rather than treated.

Treatment for higher grade CIN involves removal or destruction of the neoplastic cervical cells by cryocautery, electrocautery, laser cautery, loop electrical excision procedure (LEEP), or cervical conization. Therapeutic vaccines are currently undergoing clinical trials. The lifetime recurrence rate of CIN is about 20%, but it isn't clear what proportion of these cases are new infections rather than recurrences of the original infection.

Surgical treatment of CIN lesions is associated with an increased risk of infertility or subfertility, with an odds ratio of approximately 2 according to a case-control study.

The treatment of CIN during pregnancy increases the risk of premature birth.

Cervical polyps can be seen during a pelvic examination as red or purple projections from the cervical canal. Diagnosis can be confirmed by a cervical biopsy which will reveal the nature of the cells present.

Several tests are used to diagnose vaginal cancer, including:

- Physical exam and history

- Pelvic exam

- Pap smear

- Biopsy

- Colposcopy

Recommendations for women with vaginal cancer is not to have routine surveillance imaging to monitor the cancer unless they have new symptoms or rising tumor markers. Imaging without these indications is discouraged because it is unlikely to detect a recurrence or improve survival, and because it has its own costs and side effects. MRI provides visualization of the extent of vaginal cancer.

Prevention

Checking the cervix by the Papanicolaou test, or Pap test, for cervical cancer has been credited with dramatically reducing the number of cases of and mortality from cervical cancer in developed countries. Pap test screening every three to five years with appropriate follow-up can reduce cervical cancer incidence up to 80%. Abnormal results may suggest the presence of precancerous changes, allowing examination and possible preventive treatment. The treatment of low-grade lesions may adversely affect subsequent fertility and pregnancy. Personal invitations encouraging women to get screened are effective at increasing the likelihood they will do so. Educational materials also help increase the likelihood women will go for screening, but they are not as effective as invitations.

According to the 2010 European guidelines, the age at which to start screening ranges between 20 and 30 years of age, but preferentially not before age 25 or 30 years, and depends on burden of the disease in the population and the available resources.

In the United States, screening is recommended to begin at age 21, regardless of age at which a woman began having sex or other risk factors. Pap tests should be done every three years between the ages of 21 and 65. In women over the age of 65, screening may be discontinued if no abnormal screening results were seen within the previous 10 years and no history of CIN 2 or higher exists. HPV vaccination status does not change screening rates. Screening can occur every 5 years between ages 30 and 65 when a combination of cervical cytology screening and HPV testing is used and this is preferred. However, it is acceptable to screen this age group with a Pap test alone every three years. Screening is not beneficial before age 25 as the rate of disease is low. Screening is not beneficial in women older than 60 years if they have a history of negative results. The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) guideline has recommend for different levels of resource availability.

Liquid-based cytology is another potential screening method. Although it was probably intended to improve on the accuracy of the Pap test, its main advantage has been to reduce the number of inadequate smears from around 9% to around 1%. This reduces the need to recall women for a further smear. The United States Preventive Services Task Force supports screening every 5 years in those who are between 30 and 65 years when cytology is used in combination with HPV testing.

Pap tests have not been as effective in developing countries. This is in part because many of these countries have an impoverished health care infrastructure, too few trained and skilled professionals to obtain and interepret Pap tests, uninformed women who get lost to follow-up, and a lengthy turn-around time to get results. These realities have resulted in the investigation of cervical screening approaches that use fewer resources and offer rapid results such as visual inspection with acetic acid or HPV DNA testing.

Some tests which detect cancer could be called "screening for epithelial dysplasia". The principle behind these tests is that physicians expect dysplasia to occur at the same rate in a typical individual as it would in many other people. Because of this, researchers design screening recommendations which assume that if a physician can find no dysplasia at certain time, then doing testing before waiting until new dysplasia could potentially develop would be a waste of medical resources for the patient and the healthcare provider because the chances of detecting anything is extremely low.

Some examples of this in practice are that if a patient whose endoscopy did not detect dysplasia on biopsy during screening for Barrett's esophagus, then research shows that there is little chance of any test detecting dysplasia for that patient within three years.

Individuals at average-risk for colorectal cancer should have another screening after ten years if they get a normal result and after five years if they have only one or two adenomatous polyps removed.

Usually no treatment is indicated for clinically asymptomatic cervical ectropions. Hormonal therapy may be indicated for symptomatic erosion. If it becomes troublesome to the patient, it can be treated by discontinuing oral contraceptives, cryotherapy treatment, or by using ablation treatment under local anaesthetic. Ablation involves using a preheated probe (100 °C) to destroy 3–4 mm of the epithelium. In post-partum erosion, observation and re-examination are necessary for 3 months after labour.

Cervical cancer is staged by the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) staging system, which is based on clinical examination, rather than surgical findings. It allows only these diagnostic tests to be used in determining the stage: palpation, inspection, colposcopy, endocervical curettage, hysteroscopy, cystoscopy, proctoscopy, intravenous urography, and X-ray examination of the lungs and skeleton, and cervical conization.

Carcinoma "in situ" is, by definition, a localized phenomenon, with no potential for metastasis unless it progresses into cancer. Therefore, its removal eliminates the risk of subsequent progression into a life-threatening condition.

Some forms of CIS (e.g., colon polyps and polypoid tumours of the bladder) can be removed using an endoscope, without conventional surgical resection. Dysplasia of the uterine cervix is removed by excision (cutting it out) or by burning with a laser. Bowen's disease of the skin is removed by excision. Other forms require major surgery, the best known being intraductal carcinoma of the breast (also treated with radiotherapy). One of the most dangerous forms of CIS is the "pneumonic form" of BAC of the lung, which can require extensive surgical removal of large parts of the lung. When too large, it often cannot be completely removed, with eventual disease progression and death of the patient.

Anal Pap smears similar to those used in cervical cancer screening have been studied for early detection of anal cancer in high-risk individuals. In 2011, the HIV clinic implemented a program to enhance access to anal cancer screening for HIV-positive men. Nurse practitioners perform anal Papanicolaou screening, and men with abnormal results receive further evaluation with high-resolution anoscopy. The program has helped identify many precancerous growths, allowing them to be safely removed.

Historically, the combination of external-beam radiation therapy (EBRT) has been the most common treatment for vaginal cancer. In early stages of vaginal cancer, surgery also has some benefit. This management and treatment is less effective for those with advanced stages of cancer but works well in early stages with high rates of cure. Advanced vaginal cancer only has a 5-year survival rates of 52.2%, 42.5% and 20.5% for patients with stage II, III and IVa disease. Newer treatments for advanced stages of ovarian have been developed. These utilize concurrent carboplatin plus paclitaxel, EBRT and high-dose-rate interstitial brachytherapy (HDR-ISBT).

When the chance of surgical removal of all cancerous tissue is very low or when the surgery has a chance of damaging the bladder, vagina or bowel, radiation therapy is used. When a tumor is less than 4 cm in diameter, radiation therapy provides excellent results. In these instances, the 5-year survival rate is greater than 80%. Treatments are individualized due to the rarity of vaginal cancer studies.

Intraepithelial neoplasia (IEN) is the development of a benign neoplasia or high-grade dysplasia in an epithelium. The exact dividing line between dysplasia and neoplasia has been very difficult to draw throughout the era of medical science. It varies between persons. In the localizations shown below, the term "intraepithelial neoplasia" is used to describe more accurately what was historically referred to as epithelial dysplasia. IEN is not cancer, but it is associated with higher risk for developing cancer in future. It is thus sometimes a precancerous condition.

Cervical ectropion can be associated with excessive but non-purulent vaginal discharge due to the increased surface area of columnar epithelium containing mucus-secreting glands. It may also give rise to post-coital bleeding, as fine blood vessels present within the columnar epithelium are easily traumatised.

Examples of dysplasia include epithelial dysplasia of the cervix (cervical intraepithelial neoplasia – a disorder commonly detected by an abnormal pap smear) consisting of an increased population of immature (basal-like) cells which are restricted to the mucosal surface, and have not invaded through the basement membrane to the deeper soft tissues. Analogous conditions include vaginal intraepithelial neoplasia and vulvar intraepithelial neoplasia. Metanephric dysplastic hematoma of the sacral region is a dysplastic overgrowth observed in infants.

Large-cell carcinoma (LCC), like small-cell carcinoma (SCC) is very rare and only accounts for about 5% of all cervical cancers. Early-stage LCC are extremely aggressive and difficult to diagnose due to the sub-mucosal location of the tumor and intact overlying mucosa. As with SCC, in LCC early cases are asymptomatic. Later stages present with irregular bleeding, vaginal spotting, discharge, and pelvic pain. The basis for treatment of LCC tumors is derived from therapy used for SCC; when diagnosed, multimodal therapy should be considered just as with SCC.

Since many, if not most, anal cancers derive from HPV infections, and since the HPV vaccine before exposure to HPV prevents infection by some strains of the virus and has been shown to reduce the incidence of potentially precancerous lesions, scientists surmise that HPV vaccination may reduce the incidence of anal cancer.

On 22 December 2010, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Gardasil vaccine to prevent anal cancer and pre-cancerous lesions in males and females aged 9 to 26 years. The vaccine has been used before to help prevent cervical, vulvar, and vaginal cancer, and associated lesions caused by HPV types 6, 11, 16, and 18 in women.

Treatment of cervical stenosis involves opening or widening the cervical canal. The condition may improve on its own following the vaginal delivery of a baby.

Cervical canal widening can be termporarily achieved by the insertion of dilators into the cervix. If the stenosis is caused by scar tissue, a laser treatment can be used to vaporize the scarring.

Finally, the surgical enlargement of the cervical canal can be performed by hysteroscopic shaving of the cervical tissue.

The diagnosis of cervical agenesis can be made by magnetic resonance imaging, which is used to determine the presence or absence of a cervix. Although MRI can detect the absence of a cervix (agenesis), it is unable to show cervical dysgenesis (where the cervix is present, but malformed). Ultrasound is a less reliable imaging study, but it is often the first choice by gynecologists to establish a diagnosis and can identify a hematometra secondary to cervical agenesis.

It has been observed that HPV18 is the most prevalent type in Small cell cervical cancer.

Like other types of cervical cancer it seems to be associated with high-risk (e.g. 16, 18, 31) HPV Infection.

These terms are related since they represent the steps of the progression toward cancer:

- Dysplasia is the earliest form of precancerous lesion recognizable in a biopsy. Dysplasia can be low-grade or high-grade. High-grade dysplasia may also be referred to as carcinoma "in situ".

- Invasive carcinoma, usually simply called cancer, has the potential to invade and spread to surrounding tissues and structures, and may eventually be lethal.

Cervical stenosis may be present from birth or may be caused by other factors:

- Surgical procedures performed on the cervix such as colposcopy, cone biopsy, or a cryosurgery procedure

- Trauma to the cervix

- Repeated vaginal infections

- Atrophy of the cervix after menopause

- Cervical cancer

- Radiation

- Cervical nabothian cysts

Tissue biopsy is usually indicated to rule out other causes of white patches and also to enable a detailed histologic examination to grade the presence of any epithelial dysplasia. This is an indicator of malignant potential and usually determines the management and recall interval. The sites of a leukoplakia lesion that are preferentially biopsied are the areas that show induration (hardening) and erythroplasia (redness), and erosive or ulcerated areas. These areas are more likely to show any dysplasia than homogenous white areas.

Brush biopsy/exfoliative cytology is an alternative to incisional biopsy, where a stiff brush is scraped against the lining of the mouth to remove a sample of cells. This is then made into a smear which can be examined microscopically. Sometimes the biopsy site can be selected with adjunct methods which aim to highlight areas of dysplasia. Toluidine blue staining, where the dye is preferentially retained by dysplastic tissue, is sometimes used, but there is high false positive rate. Other methods involve the use of illuminescence, relying on either the property of normal autoflorescent molecules in mucosa such as collagen and keratin which is lost from areas of dysplasia or carcinoma under blue light, or by initially staining of the mucosa with toluidine blue or dilute acetic acid and examination under white light.

The first line of therapy after diagnosis typically involves the administration of the combined oral contraceptive pill, medroxyprogesterone acetate or a gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonist to suppress menstruation and thereby relieve pain. Surgically, cervical agenesis has historically been treated through hysterectomy (removal of the uterus) to relieve symptoms caused by hematocolpos (the accumulation of menstrual fluid in the vagina). Other surgical methods of management involve the creation of an anastomotic connection between the uterus and vagina by neovaginoplasty or recanalization of the cervix. Outcomes in these cases are generally poor, since the natural functions of the cervix—such as mucus production and providing a barrier against ascending infection—cannot be replicated. Furthermore, the success rate of uterovaginal anastomosis is less than 50% and most patients require multiple surgeries while many develop cervical stenotis. Despite this, several pregnancies have been reported in women with cervical agenesis who underwent surgical treatment.

The annual malignant transformation rate of leukoplakia rarely exceeds 1%, i.e. the vast majority of oral leukoplakia lesions will remain benign. A number of clinical and histopathologic features are associated with varying degrees of increased risk of malignant transformation, although other sources argue that there are no universally accepted and validated factors which can reliably predict malignant change. It is also unpredictable to an extent if an area of leukoplakia will disappear, shrink or remain stable.

- Presence and degree of dysplasia (mild, moderate or severe/carcinoma in situ). Dysplasia is the most important predictor of malignant change, and about 10% of leukoplakia lesions show dysplasia when biopsied.

- Leukoplakia located on the floor of the mouth, the posterior and lateral tongue, and the retromolar areas (the region behind the wisdom teeth) have higher risk, whereas white patches in areas such as the top surface of the tongue and the hard palate do not have significant risk. Although these "high risk" sites are recognized, statistically, leukoplakia is more common on the buccal mucosa, alveolar mucosa, and the lower labial mucosa. Leukoplakia of the floor of the mouth and tongue accounts for over 90% of leukoplakias showing dysplasia or carcinoma on biopsy. This is thought to be due to pooling of saliva in the lower part of the mouth, exposing these areas to more carcinogens held in suspension.

- Red lesions (erythroplasia) and mixed red and white lesions (erythroleukoplakia/"speckled leukoplakia") have a higher risk of malignant change than homogenous leukoplakia.

- Verrucous or nodular areas have a higher risk.

- Although smoking increases risk of malignant transformation, smoking also causes many white patches with no dysplasia. This means that statistically, white patches in non smokers have a higher risk.

- Older people with white patches are at higher risk.

- Larger white patches are more likely to undergo malignant transformation than smaller lesions.

- White patches which have been present for a long period of time have higher risk.

- Persons with a positive family history of cancer in the mouth.

- Candida infection in the presence of dysplasia has a small increased risk.

- A change in the appearance of the white patch, apart from a change in the color, has a higher risk. Changes in the lesion such as becoming fixed to underlying tissues, ulceration, cervical lymphadenopathy (enlargement of lymph nodes in the neck), and bone destruction may herald the appearance of malignancy.

- White patches present in combination with other conditions that carry a higher risk (e.g. oral submucous fibrosis), are more likely to turn malignant.

- Although overall, oral cancer is more common in males, females with white patches are at higher risk than men.