Pap smear abnormalities in women admitted to a tertiary health center in southeast Turkey

Abstract

AimTo analyze the cervical cytological abnormalities which are detected in women undergoing Pap screening in a tertiary health care center within Siirt, a southeastern province of Turkey.MethodsA total of 3000 women who underwent Pap screening at the study center between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009 were recruited for the study. The women who were diagnosed with benign epithelial changes, infectious alterations, as well as atypical squamous cells with undetermined significance (ASC-US), atypi-cal squamous cells of high significance (ASC-H), and low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL) were included.ResultsBenign epithelial altera-tions, infectious changes, ASCUS, ASC-H, and LSIL were detected in 83.7%, 15.3%, 0.8%, 0.1% and 0.1% of the Pap smears respectively. A significant correlation was found between the patient age and the histopathological al-terations in the Pap smears (r=0.072, p=0.001). Although no correlation could be detected between gravidity and Pap smear results (r=0.033, p=0.067), a significant correlation existed between parity and the histopathological findings within the Pap smears (r=0.051, p=0.005). Interestingly, the Pap smear results were found to be unrelated to socioeconomic status (r=0.088, p=0.168), education level (r=0.048, p=0.257), and smoking habit (r=0.086, p=0.077).ConclusionThe present study has reported a value of 1.0% for the overall prevalence of cervical cytological abnormalities, which is much lower than in western countries. Thus, rather than being dependent on the data reported by clinical studies that have been conducted in western coun-tries, Turkish health care policy should be based on the data obtained from national studies.

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