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Tropical Doctor Jan 2019This cross-sectional descriptive study, aimed at accessing the accuracy of Pap smear in diagnosing cervical precancerous lesions, was carried out between 3 January and...
This cross-sectional descriptive study, aimed at accessing the accuracy of Pap smear in diagnosing cervical precancerous lesions, was carried out between 3 January and 30 April 2017. All women screened for cervical dysplasia by means of Pap smear with biopsy done for confirmation were subsequently recruited. Data were analysed using SPSS 20.0. A total of 231 women were screened for cervical dysplasia using Pap smear with 75 biopsies performed. Cervical dysplasia was noticed in 54 cases. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive and negative predictive values of Pap smear were 55.5%, 75%, 88.2% and 33.3%, respectively. The sensitivity of Pap smear remains low. Therefore, biopsy should be done in cases of macroscopic cervical architectural changes irrespective of the result of the Pap smear. Moreover, to reduce the number of women with cervical precancerous lesions, the government should make available financial resources to set up HPV vaccination programmes rather than screening programmes.
Topics: Adult; Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Humans; Mass Screening; Middle Aged; Papanicolaou Test; Sensitivity and Specificity; Uterine Cervical Dysplasia; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Vaginal Smears; Young Adult
PubMed: 30222058
DOI: 10.1177/0049475518798532 -
Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer... 2016Cervical cancer is the fourth common cancer among women worldwide. Pap smear screening has resulted in deceasing incidence of cervical cancer in developed countries but...
Cervical cancer is the fourth common cancer among women worldwide. Pap smear screening has resulted in deceasing incidence of cervical cancer in developed countries but low uptake of Pap smear screening among women in developing countries is still a public health challenge. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to assess the relationship between self-efficacy and timely uptake of Pap smear among Iranian women. A total of 580 married women referred to primary health care centers covered administratively by Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences in Tehran were administered a questionnaire by trained staff. Data were analyzed with SPSS (version 16) software, using univariate and multivariate logistic regression. The mean age for participants was 33.1±8.8 years. There was a significant association between self-efficacy and Pap smear screening (P<0.01). There was also a positive correlation between duration of marriage and husband's education with Pap smear uptake (P<0.01). In univariate analysis, there was a significant association between Pap smear uptake and level of self-efficacy (OR = 15.3 for intermediate and OR=7.4 for good level), duration of marriage (OR = 5.7 for 5-14 years and OR=10.4 for more than 15), age (OR =2.7 for 27-34 years and OR=7.4 for more than 35 years) and husband education level (OR=2.3 for more than 12 years of education). In multivariate analysis, significant associations persisted between Pap smear uptake and self-efficacy (OR = 23.8; 95% CI: 8.7, 65.5), duration of marriage (OR = 5.9; 95% CI: 2.8, 12.2), age (OR = 3.9; 95% CI: 1.2, 12.9) and husband's education (OR = 2.5; 95% CI: 2.0, 10.3). Efforts are needed to increase women's knowledge about cervical cancer and improve their self-efficacy and perceptions of the Pap smear screening in order to reduce cervical cancer incidence and mortality rates.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Cross-Sectional Studies; Female; Follow-Up Studies; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Iran; Mass Screening; Papanicolaou Test; Prognosis; Self Efficacy; Surveys and Questionnaires; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Vaginal Smears; Young Adult
PubMed: 27165236
DOI: 10.7314/apjcp.2016.17.s3.263 -
BMC Women's Health Dec 2022Despite the national cervical cancer (CC) screening program established in 2006, the CC incidence in Estonia in 2020 was still one of the highest in Europe. To better...
BACKGROUND
Despite the national cervical cancer (CC) screening program established in 2006, the CC incidence in Estonia in 2020 was still one of the highest in Europe. To better understand the possible barriers among women, the aim of this study was to describe the inequalities in the Pap smear uptake trend in 2004-2020 and to analyse the associations between different factors in Estonia.
METHODS
Weighted data of 25-64-year-old women (N = 6685) from population-based cross-sectional studies of Health Behaviour among Estonian Adult Population in 2004-2020 was used. Linear trends in uptake of Pap smear over time were tested using the Cochrane-Armitage test. Binary logistic regression with interactions was performed to analyse associations between the uptake of Pap smear and sociodemographic, socioeconomic, health-related and lifestyle factors. Crude and adjusted odds ratios with 95% confidence intervals were calculated.
RESULTS
Prevalence of lifetime uptake of Pap smear increased in 2004-2020 from 50.6 to 86.7% (P < 0.001). From 2004 to 2020, uptake of Pap smear increased significantly among women aged 25-34, 35-44, 45-54 and 55-64, in both ethnicity groups and among women with basic, secondary and higher education (P < 0.001). The gap in Pap smear uptake increased between Estonians and non-Estonians but decreased between education levels over time. Lower lifetime uptake of Pap smear was associated from sociodemographic factors with younger age, being non-Estonian and single, from socioeconomic factors with lower educational level and unemployment, from health indicators with higher body mass index indicating overweight and obesity, presence of chronic disease and depressiveness, and from lifestyle factors with non-smoking.
CONCLUSIONS
Although Pap smear uptake among 25-64 year old women increased significantly in Estonia in 2004-2020, inequalities were found indicating an opportunity for development of targeted CC prevention strategies.
Topics: Adult; Female; Humans; Middle Aged; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Vaginal Smears; Cross-Sectional Studies; Early Detection of Cancer; Mass Screening; Papanicolaou Test; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
PubMed: 36566176
DOI: 10.1186/s12905-022-02123-z -
BMC Women's Health Jul 2023In 2020, cervical cancer ranked fourth in terms of both frequency of diagnosis and the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women globally. Among Malaysian...
BACKGROUND
In 2020, cervical cancer ranked fourth in terms of both frequency of diagnosis and the leading cause of cancer-related deaths among women globally. Among Malaysian women, it was the third most prevalent form of cancer. Published data on nationally representative cervical cancer screening in Malaysia have been limited. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the prevalence of receiving a Pap smear test in the past three years, its relationship with socio-demographic factors and physical activity.
METHODS
Using a subset of survey data from the National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) 2019, a secondary data analysis was performed. Trained research assistants collected data through face-to-face method using a mobile tablet questionnaire system application. Logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the relationship between sociodemographic factors, physical activity, and cervical cancer screening. The analyses were conducted using STATA version 14 (Stata Corp, College Station, Texas, USA), accounting for sample weighs and complex sampling design.
RESULTS
The analysis included 5,650 female respondents, representing an estimated 10.3 million Malaysian female adults aged 18 and above. Overall, 35.2% (95%CI 33.2, 37.4) respondents had a Pap smear test within the past three years. Respondents who were physically active were 1.41 times more likely to have a Pap smear test. Similarly, respondents aged 35-59 (OR 1.84; 95%CI 1.46, 2.34) and those living in rural localities (OR 1.38; 95%CI 1.13, 1.70) had higher odds of receiving a Pap smear test. Compared to married respondents, single respondents (OR 0.04; 95%CI 0.02, 0.07) and widowed/divorcee respondents (OR 0.72; 95%CI 0.56, 0.82) were less likely to receive a Pap smear test. Educated respondents were more likely to have had a Pap smear test.
CONCLUSIONS
The overall prevalence of cervical cancer screening in Malaysia remains low (35.2%). Efforts should be made to strengthen health promotion programs and policies in increasing awareness on the significance of cervical cancer screening. These initiatives should specifically target younger women, single women, and widowed/divorced individuals. The higher cervical screening uptake among rural women should be studied further, and the enabling factors in the rural setup should be emulated in urban areas whenever possible.
Topics: Adult; Female; Humans; Vaginal Smears; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Early Detection of Cancer; Malaysia; Prevalence; Mass Screening; Papanicolaou Test; Surveys and Questionnaires; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice
PubMed: 37491253
DOI: 10.1186/s12905-023-02553-3 -
American Family Physician May 2017
Topics: Adverse Childhood Experiences; Ambulatory Care Facilities; Female; Humans; Middle Aged; Papanicolaou Test; Physician-Patient Relations; Vaginal Discharge; Wounds and Injuries
PubMed: 28671409
DOI: No ID Found -
Journal of Psychosomatic Obstetrics and... Mar 2020Abnormal Pap smear result means there have been cell changes on the cervix but are not cancer. Women with abnormal test result may be affected from this situation. What...
Abnormal Pap smear result means there have been cell changes on the cervix but are not cancer. Women with abnormal test result may be affected from this situation. What do women with abnormal Pap smear results experience from a biopsychosocial perspective? This study aimed to explore the experiences of women with abnormal Pap smear results according to the biopsychosocial model. This phenomenological study's data were collected in interviews with 12 women who had abnormal Pap smear test results. Data collection tool consists of two parts that are an "Women's Information Form (WIF)" identifying women and semi-structured "Interview Form". Interviews were done face-to-face by using in-depth interviews technique. Semi-structured interview was recorded in audio recording device. Thematic approach was used to assess the data. The average age of the women was 42.5 ± 3.64, their age at first sexual intercourse was 23.0 ± 2.8 years and all of them were legally married. Five main themes were determined, which were grouped under the Biopsychosocial Model Domains. The Biological Domain themes were Perception of Health and Disease, and Cervical Cancer Risk Factors; the Psychological Domain themes were Positive Feelings and Negative Feelings; the Social Domain theme was Continuing Social Life. It was concluded that the cultural beliefs, perceptions, emotions and practices of women with abnormal Pap smear results should be considered in the diagnostic and treatment processes. These characteristics of women's experience are also important to consider when developing strategies to address barriers to effective cervical screening, diagnosis and treatment.
Topics: Adult; Culture; Early Detection of Cancer; Female; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Models, Biopsychosocial; Papanicolaou Test; Qualitative Research; Social Perception; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Vaginal Smears
PubMed: 31452433
DOI: 10.1080/0167482X.2019.1657090 -
Cytopathology : Official Journal of the... Mar 2022Implementation of quality control measures ensures acceptable performance by a laboratory. This study aims to assess the quality of cervical cytopathology reporting...
OBJECTIVES
Implementation of quality control measures ensures acceptable performance by a laboratory. This study aims to assess the quality of cervical cytopathology reporting using quality metrics like atypical squamous cells (which include both atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance and atypical squamous cell -cannot rule out high grade squamous intraepithelial lesion)/squamous intraepithelial lesion (ASC/SIL), cytohistological correlation (CHC) and positive predictive value (PPV) of Papanicolaou (Pap) smears for squamous lesions of cervix.
METHODS
A retrospective study of Pap smears from 2015 to 2020 was performed. The quality metrics analysed include diagnoses of ASCUS, ASC-H and ASCUS/SIL ratio, CHC and PPV. Cases with cervical biopsies/hysterectomy were included for CHC, and discrepancy was defined as discordance in diagnostic category between cytology and histology in the CHC.
RESULTS
A total of 22,695 cervical cytology smears were reported. Unsatisfactory smears (n = 290) were excluded. Squamous lesions were reported in 233 smears, and the Bethesda system of nomenclature was followed. A definitive diagnosis (SILs and SCC) was given in 74% of cases. ASCUS and ASC-H were reported in 47 and 14 cases, respectively. The most common lesion on Pap smear was high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL; n = 92), followed by low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL; n = 64), and two were ungradable SIL. Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) was reported in 14 smears. The ASC/SIL ratio was 0.38. CHC (n = 139) was 100% for ASC-H, LSIL, SCC and 84.7% for HSIL. A review of discrepant cases suggested sampling and interpretational discrepancy in five and one cases, respectively. The PPV of Pap smear for squamous lesions was 96.4%.
CONCLUSION
It is essential to have good quality cytopathology reports for early identification, which enables appropriate management. The most commonly used quality indicator for cytopathology is the ASCUS/SIL ratio. This study suggests the inclusion of the CHC and PPV values as quality metrics for Pap smear, since these are easily measurable and serve as a good indicator of quality in cervical cytopathology reporting.
Topics: Benchmarking; Cervix Uteri; Female; Humans; Papanicolaou Test; Retrospective Studies; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Vaginal Smears; Uterine Cervical Dysplasia
PubMed: 34854153
DOI: 10.1111/cyt.13082 -
Mathematical Biosciences and... Apr 2022Cervical cancer is the second most commonly seen cancer in women. It affects the cervix portion of the vagina. The most preferred diagnostic test required for screening...
Cervical cancer is the second most commonly seen cancer in women. It affects the cervix portion of the vagina. The most preferred diagnostic test required for screening cervical cancer is the pap smear test. Pap smear is a time-consuming test as it requires detailed analysis by expert cytologists. Cytologists can screen around 100 to 1000 slides depending upon the availability of advanced equipment. Due to this reason Artificial intelligence (AI) based computer-aided diagnosis system for the classification of pap smear images is needed. There are some AI-based solutions proposed in the literature, still an effective and accurate system is under research. In this paper, the deep learning-based hybrid methodology namely DeepCyto is proposed for the classification of pap smear cytology images. The DeepCyto extracts the feature fusion vectors from pre-trained models and passes these to two workflows. Workflow-1 applies principal component analysis and machine learning ensemble to classify the pap smear images. Workflow-2 takes feature fusion vectors as an input and applies an artificial neural network for classification. The experiments are performed on three benchmark datasets namely Herlev, SipakMed, and LBCs. The performance measures of accuracy, precision, recall and F1-score are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the DeepCyto. The experimental results depict that Workflow-2 has given the best performance on all three datasets even with a smaller number of epochs. Also, the performance of the DeepCyto Workflow 2 on multi-cell images of LBCs is better compared to single cell images of other datasets. Thus, DeepCyto is an efficient method for accurate feature extraction as well as pap smear image classification.
Topics: Artificial Intelligence; Cervix Uteri; Female; Humans; Papanicolaou Test; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Vaginal Smears
PubMed: 35730264
DOI: 10.3934/mbe.2022301 -
Indian Journal of Cancer 2018Cervical cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer in women in the world and it is the second most common cancer in women 15-44 years of age. Strict implementation of...
BACKGROUND
Cervical cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer in women in the world and it is the second most common cancer in women 15-44 years of age. Strict implementation of screening programs has led to a large decrease in cervical cancer incidence and mortality in the developed countries. In contrast, cervical cancer remains largely uncontrolled in high-risk developing countries because of ineffective or no screening programs. Conventional Pap smear method has been the mainstay of most of the screening programs for many decades. However, this technique is not without limitations, and the sensitivity and specificity of cervical cytology are relatively low. To overcome the limitations of conventional Pap smear (CPS), liquid-based cytology (LBC) was introduced in 1990s as a better tool for processing cervical samples.
OBJECTIVES
This study was undertaken to compare CPS with liquid-based methods, to assess the effectiveness and feasibility of LBC over CPS in our setting, and also to evaluate the prevalence of human papillomavirus (HPV) in our population.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
This study was conducted in Gynecological Oncology Unit of Regional Cancer Center at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna, Bihar. About 310 women were enrolled in this study and the sample was taken for both conventional cytology and LBC. The smears were studied in detail and were interpreted as per the Bethesda system of reporting Pap smears. The results were compared and analyzed statistically.
RESULTS
Unsatisfactory smears were more commonly reported by conventional method (7.1%) than with liquid-based method (1.61%), and this difference is statistically significant. There was no difference in the detection of epithelial cell abnormalities using both the methods. HPV DNA for high-risk oncogenic strains (16 and 18) was detected in 6.45% of women in this study.
CONCLUSION
LBC has been found to be more superior to conventional smears only with respect to lesser number of unsatisfactory smears, but considering the economic implications of LBC, conventional Pap is more feasible in our setting.
Topics: Adolescent; Adult; Cytodiagnosis; Female; Humans; India; Mass Screening; Papanicolaou Test; Tertiary Care Centers; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Young Adult
PubMed: 30147099
DOI: 10.4103/ijc.IJC_352_17 -
BMC Women's Health Aug 2021Cervical cancer is one of the most frequent types of cancer in females. The Pap smear is one of the most essential ways of diagnosing and screening for this malignancy,...
BACKGROUND
Cervical cancer is one of the most frequent types of cancer in females. The Pap smear is one of the most essential ways of diagnosing and screening for this malignancy, and any failure can be caused by a number of causes. The current study sought to investigate barriers to Pap smear in Iranian women.
METHOD
This qualitative content analysis study was conducted in Iran in 2019. Data was gathered through focus groups and individual semi-structured interviews with 32 women and health professionals. The interviewees were chosen using a combination of purposive and theoretical sampling. The data was then analyzed using the content analysis approach developed by Graneheim and Lundman. Guba and Lincoln's criteria for establishing trustworthiness were explored.
RESULTS
Data analysis resulted in the identification of four primary categories, seventeen subcategories, and 186 original concepts. The main categories include weakness of health system, difficult accessibility, low health literacy, and socio-cultural factors.
CONCLUSION
By informing women about the necessity and importance of Pap smear, providing the conditions, facilities, and equipment to facilitate the testing process, and paying more attention to cultural and social factors in cervical cancer and Pap smear planning, interventions, and policies, barriers to Pap testing can be eliminated.
Topics: Female; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Iran; Papanicolaou Test; Uterine Cervical Neoplasms; Vaginal Smears
PubMed: 34362366
DOI: 10.1186/s12905-021-01428-9