• Sao Paulo Med J · Jan 2007

    The impact of a community intervention to improve cervical cancer screening uptake in the Amazon region of Brazil.

    • Marcus Vinicius von Zuben, Sophie Françoise Derchain, Luis Otávio Sarian, Maria Cristina Westin, Luiz Claudio Santos Thuler, and Luiz Carlos Zeferino.
    • Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Rua Alexander Fleming 101, Campinas, São Paulo, CEP 13084-110, Brazil.
    • Sao Paulo Med J. 2007 Jan 4; 125 (1): 424542-5.

    Context And ObjectiveIn the northern region of Brazil, cervical cancer is the most important cause of cancer-related deaths among women. There is considerable likelihood, however, that official incidence and mortality figures are greatly underestimated. The aim of this study was to estimate the repercussions from improvement in cervical cancer screening programs on the incidence of pre-invasive and invasive cervical lesions in a municipality in this region.Design And SettingThis was a quasi-experimental study that assessed process dimensions relevant to the program objectives. The study comprised a sample of 2,226 women seen at primary healthcare units in Cruzeiro do Sul, a small city in the Brazilian Amazon region, from April 2003 to July 2004.MethodsWomen were recruited through local radio advertisements and by oral communication from the investigators. The women answered a structured questionnaire and underwent pelvic examination, which included Papanicolaou (Pap) smears and naked-eye inspection of the cervix after applying diluted acetic acid. Women with positive Pap smears or abnormal gynecological examination were referred for colposcopy and possible biopsy, diathermic large loop excision of the transformation zone or conization.ResultsThe results obtained were compared with historical official data retrieved from the Brazilian Ministry of Health's database. Intervention resulted in a 40% increase in positive Pap smears and detection of cancer was nine times higher than had been observed in routine screening.ConclusionsDetection of pre-invasive and invasive cervical lesions in the intervention group was remarkably higher than among women seen during routine screening.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…