Risk factors for VIA positivity and determinants of screening attendances in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

BMC Public Health

Research Article

Thomas Iftner¹  Vibeke Rasch²  Myassa Dartell³  Crispin Kahesa⁴  Susanne Kruger Kjaer⁵  Twalib Ngoma⁶  Julius Mwaiselage⁶ 

[1] Department of Experimental Virology, Universitaetsklinikum, Tuebingen, Germany;Department of International Health, Immunology and Microbiology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Odense University Hospital, Odense, Denmark;Department of International Health, Immunology and Microbiology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;Department of Virus, Lifestyle and Genes, Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark;Department of International Health, Immunology and Microbiology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;Ocean Road Cancer Institute, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania;Department of Virus, Lifestyle and Genes, Institute of Cancer Epidemiology, Danish Cancer Society, Copenhagen, Denmark;Gynecologic Clinic, Rigshospitalet, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark;Ocean Road Cancer Institute, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania;

关键词: Cervical cancer;    Screening;    VIA;    HPV;    HIV;    Tanzania;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2458-12-1055

 received in 2012-04-09, accepted in 2012-12-03,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTanzania is among the countries in the world where the cervical cancer incidence is estimated to be highest. Acknowledging an increase in the burden of cervical cancer, VIA was implemented as a regional cervical cancer screening strategy in Tanzania in 2002. With the aim of describing risk factors for VIA positivity and determinants of screening attendances in Tanzania, this paper present the results from a comparative analysis performed among women who are reached and not reached by the screening program”.Methods14 107 women aged 25–59 enrolled in a cervical cancer screening program in Dar es Salaam in the period 2002 – 2008. The women underwent VIA examination and took part in a structured questionnaire interview. Socioeconomic characteristics, sexual behavior, HIV status and high-risk (HR) HPV infection were determined in a subpopulation of 890 who participated and 845 who did not participate in the screening.ResultsBeing widowed/separated OR=1.41 (95% CI: 1.17-1.66), of high parity OR=3.19 (95% CI: 1.84-5.48) of low education OR= 4.30 (95% CI: 3.50-5.31) and married at a young age OR=2.17 (95% CI: 1.37-3.07) were associated with being VIA positive. Women who participated in the screening were more likely to be HIV positive OR= 1.59 (95% CI. 1.14-2.25) in comparison with women who had never attended screening, while no difference was found in the prevalence of HR-HPV infection among women who had attended screening and women who had not attended screening.ConclusionWomen who are widowed/separated, of high parity, of low education and married at a young age are more likely to be VIA positive and thus at risk of developing cervical cancer. The study further documents that a referral linkage between the HIV care and treatment program and the cervical cancer screening program is in place in the setting studied, where HIV positive were more likely to participate in the cervical cancer screening program than HIV negative women.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Kahesa et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.