Prevalence of cervical dysplasia in western Uttar Pradesh

Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia and cervical cancer remain important health problems. Cervical cytology by Papanicolaou (Pap) smears is an effective means of screening for cervical premalignant and malignant conditions.

The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of cervical dysplasia in pre- and postmenopausal women in western Uttar Pradesh and to find out risk factors as far as possible.

A total of 4,703 cases were enrolled, cervical scrape smears were collected and stained using Papanicolaou's method and hematoxylin and eosin stain. The emphasis was put on epithelial abnormalities and smears were classified according to The Bethesda System 2001.

81.06% (3812) smears were satisfactory according to The Bethesda System. Maximum numbers of cases (40.37%) were in age group 30-39 years. The epithelial abnormalities constituted 3.23% of all cases. Low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL) formed the largest number (1.36%), while high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) formed 0.91%. Eleven cases of squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) were detected. The study has shown a relatively high prevalence of epithelial abnormalities in cervical smears with increasing age, parity, early age at first coitus (<20 year), and lower socioeconomic status in symptomatic women with clinical lesions on per speculum examination.

Epithelial abnormalities of cervix are not uncommon in our setup and are associated with early age at marriage and parity.