Cytological Abnormalities, Sexually Transmitted Diseases and Periodicity of Cervical Cancer Screening in a Basic Health Unit

Abstract

Introduction: Cervical cancer is a public health problem. Screening must follow a set of planned actions with defined population and periodicity. Objectives: Verify the periodicity of cytopatological tests, identify cytopatological abnormalities frequency and sexually transmitted diseases from the records of women attended in a Basic Health Unit. Method: Retrospective study on Pap test records during the period from november 2005 to december 2010. The diagnoses of cytological abnormalities, sexually transmitted diseases and periodicity of cervical cancer screening were analyzed, according to the distribution records available at the institution. Results: According to the frequency of cytological exams from 1967 women records, 42.9% repeated the Pap test once in five years or more. Of those exams with abnormal cytology records analyzed 73.1% were classified as Intraepithelial Low- grade Lesion; Intraepithelial High-grade Lesion and 2.9% atypical squamous non neoplastic cells. The highest percentage of sexually transmitted diseases was Gardnerella vaginalis: 66.2%. The women who underwent Pap test showed cervical abnormalities associated with sexually transmitted diseases especially in the age group 25-64, the main group performed by Pap test (71.6%). Conclusion: The periodical screening is an important tool for cytological abnormalities detection, but it is necessary to increase the follow up of women by sharing information about the frequency of controls and sexually transmitted diseases prevention, and calling for examination, treatment, surveillance, and closure of cases, thereby reducing opportunistic default controls.