Pap smear screening results for Turkish pregnant women

Cervix cancer is one of the most common gynecological cancer types that cause cancer deaths among women. This study was planned based on a descriptive method in order to evaluate the results of PAP smear screening during pregnancy for prevention of cancer.

The research involved 110 pregnant women registered at the Obstetrics and Gynecology Polyclinic of Bagcilar Training and Research Hospital and 86 non-pregnant women of the same ages as a control group. As criteria for acceptance were conditions such as not being in coitus within the last 48 hours, not using vaginal ovule, and not performing vaginal lavage. A survey consisting of 33 questions was conducted and the results were processed using Bethesda.

The average ages were 27.1±4.70 for the pregnant women and 28.8±4.24 for the control group. 60.7% of cases had previously heard of a PAP smear test, 49% were aware of why PAP smear tests were conducted, 26.4% of pregnant participants and 27.3% of non-pregnant participants had previously undergone a smear test. In this study, smear results of all cases were 95.4% sufficient. 18.2% of pregnant cases had an infection, 54.5% had reactive cellular change, and 0.9% had atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US). 16.3% of non-pregnant cases had an infection, 58.1% had reactive cellular change, 3.5% had atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US), and 1.2% had low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LGSIL).

PAP smear test is a good opportunity to identify pre-invasive lesions in early phases of pregnancy.