Overview and aims:

Cervical cancer (CC) is the fourth leading cause of cancer death in women globally, and accounts around 311,000 deaths annually, being the persistent infection with high-risk Human Papilloma virus the most common cause. The prevention of CC is based on gynecological screening, which allows to classify the degree of existing lesion, as well as to identify other changes which may contribute to the development of these lesions and subsequent neoplasia. We aim to analyze the prevalence of cancerous and pre-cancerous lesions in the Algarve population attending the Private Hospital of Algarve (HPA), through the study of the results of gynecological cytology performed in this Hospital. Study design: Retrospective observational study from the clinical database.

Methods:

Data collected from the gynecological cytological analysis of female users between 25 up to 65 years old, carried out between January 2013 and December 2017.

Results:

It was found that the number of samples increased over the five years, making a total of 28346 samples, in which the cytological result with the highest percentage is the negative, with 95.6%. Of the cytology’s with lesions (4.4%), the one with the highest percentage is ASCUS with 2.2%, followed by LSIL with 1.7%. The Algarve municipality with the highest number of injuries identified is Faro 19.7%, followed by Portimão 15.8%. On the other hand, Castro Marim is the county with the lowest frequency of injuries 0.3%, and Alcoutim did not present any detected injuries; the age range with the largest number of samples is from 35 to 40 years old.

Conclusion:

This study showed that, in Algarve, the adherence to greater female health care increased in the population that uses the HPA, with the negative cytologic result being the most prevalent.

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