Interventions and outcomes of population-based cervical cancer screening at the federal teaching hospital Gombe, North eastern Nigeria.

Abstract

Background: Cervical cancer screening allows pre-cancerous lesions to be identified at stages when they can easily be treated. In low-and middle-income countries, there is limited access to these preventative measures, even more so to HPV vaccination.

Objective: The objective of this work was to document the profile, interventions, and the outcome of screening outcomes of women who attended a free cervical cancer screening program at a tertiary health centre in Gombe and the prevalence of precancer lesions VIA and VILI positive cases.

Method: This was a population-based cross-sectional study. The “Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Nigeria” and the “Medical Women’s Association of Nigeria, the Gombe State Chapter” organized a population-based free, voluntary cervical cancer screening and treatment of women over a 1-month period (11^th January 2021 to 10^th February 2021) at Gynae-oncology unit of the Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe, in Gombe, Nigeria.

Results: A total of 1040 women were examined, and 24.3% of the tests (VIA ± VILI) were positive, with 2 clinically suspected cases of invasive cancer at stage 1 (0.2% of cases). Eighty-eight per cent of the women were of childbearing age, with a mean age at coitarche of 21.1 ± 5.2 years, and the mean parity was 3.7± 2.8 children. Of the women with cervical lesions, 79.5% had thermal ablation, 18.8% had LEEP, 0.9% had cervical polypectomy, 0.9% were referred for chemo-radiotherapy, and 1 patient (0.4%) had a hysterectomy for micro-invasive disease. All patients with lesions were recommended for at least 1 year of monitoring and re-evaluation.

Conclusion: Screening linked with intervention is key to the prevention of cervical cancer in low-resource setting