Cancer screening programs Archives - Revista Brasileira de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia

Purpose: to evaluate a populational sample of the screening proposed by the National Program of Uterine Cervical Cancer Control (PNCC), regarding the following issues: frequency of unsatisfactory cytologic results, cytologic frequency of atypical squamous or glandular cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS, AGCUS), low- or high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL), comparing the cytologic results with anatomicopathological results of colposcopically directed biopsies. Methods: through the written, broadcasting television and oral midia, women between 35 and 49 years were requested to have a preventive cytopathological test, to be collected by the authorized public health or other institutions accredited by SUS. The slides were analyzed by the program-authorized laboratories and all those patients from the populational sample from the municipality of Naviraí in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul with cellular alterations were submitted to colposcopy and directed biopsy. Results: the frequency of cytologic alterations of the ASCUS, AGCUS and SIL types was 3.3%, an index that is close to that predicted by the PNCC (4%); the percentage of samples that were unsatisfactory for evaluation was high (12.5%); among the ASCUS, AGCUS or low grade-SIL patients, 27.3% presented intraepithelial lesions of a high grade in the anatomicopathological study; while patients with cytology compatible with high grade-SIL, the directed biopsy revealed that 12.5% presented low-grade intraepithelial lesions. Conclusions: the choice of oncological cytology as the only method for the screening in the program allowed high indexes of false-negatives (27.3%) and of false-positives (12.5%). In the screening of cervical neoplasms, colposcopy has shown to be an important and indispensable method to guide the therapeutical management to be adopted.