Eliminating Cervical Cancer Using “Screen and Treat”: A Demonstration Project in Kaduna State, Nigeria

Abstract

A bstract Background: In Nigeria, cervical cancer kills one woman every hour. Screening for cervical cancer is still opportunistic. Objectives: This study aimed at performing cervical screening for women in Kaduna State by using “screen and treat” and determining the correlates of premalignant lesions with socio-demography and risk factors and treating women testing positive. Materials and Methods: Using multistage sampling, three hospitals were chosen, community entry was done, and a structured proforma was used to obtain data. Consenting eligible women were screened using visual inspection methods. Women with positive lesions were immediately treated using thermocoagulation or loop electrosurgical excision procedure, while biopsy samples were taken for suspicious malignancy. Quantitative data were summarized using frequency and proportions for categorical variables. Only those with “positive or negative” results were included in the analysis. Results: Four hundred and twenty-six women were screened, but 364 were included in the final analysis. The mean age and parity were 37.2 ± 6.9 and 4.8 ± 2.5, respectively. The majority were multiparous, with multiple lifetime sexual partners. One-fourth of the participants had early coitarche. The prevalence of premalignant lesions was 3.8% ( n = 16). None of the identified risk factors including age, coitarche, parity, and sexual partners was significantly associated with a positive cervical lesion ( P > 0.05). Conclusion: The prevalence of premalignant lesions was low in Kaduna State, Nigeria, and not significantly associated with any of the risk factors analyzed. A larger study will be needed to verify these findings.