Cervical cancer remains a major cause of morbidity and mortality among women, especially in the developing world. Increased synthesis of proteins, lipids and nucleic acids is a pre-condition for the rapid proliferation of cancer cells. We show that scanning near-field optical microscopy, in combination with an infrared free electron laser (SNOM-IR-FEL), is able to distinguish between normal and squamous lowgrade and high-grade dyskaryosis, and between normal and mixed squamous/glandular pre-invasive and adenocarcinoma cervical lesions, at designated wavelengths associated with DNA, Amide I/II and lipids. These findings evidence the promise of the SNOM-IR-FEL technique in obtaining chemical information relevant to the detection of cervical cell abnormalities and cancer diagnosis at spatial resolutions below the diffraction limit (≥0.2 μm). We compare these results with analyses following attenuated total reflection Fourier-transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy; although this latter approach has been demonstrated to detect underlying cervical atypia missed by conventional cytology, it is limited by a spatial resolution of ~3 μm to 30 μm due to the optical diffraction limit.Cervical cancer is associated with the persistent infection of high-risk types of human papillomavirus (HPV), together with other socioeconomic co-factors 1 . Screening involves cytological and histological classification of cervical cells. In the UK, cytological examination of cervical squamous cells is classified as normal, borderline or mild dyskaryosis, moderate or severe dyskaryosis and invasive cervical cancer (ICC). Histology is defined as normal, cervical intra-epithelial neoplasia (CIN): CIN1, CIN2, CIN3, or invasive cervical cancer. For atypical cells found in the glandular cells of the cervix, the pre-invasive lesion of adenocarcinoma is defined by changes termed cervical glandular intraepithelial neoplasia (CGIN), and sub-classified as low-grade cervical glandular intra-epithelial neoplasia (LGCGIN) and high-grade cervical glandular intra-epithelial neoplasia (HGCGIN). Squamous and glandular lesions may co-exist together and are defined by the level of CIN together with either LGCGIN or HGCGIN. Conventional screening is flawed as it is dependent on the subjective visual inspection of cytology; this often results in mis-diagnoses when grading samples 2 .