Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cervical cancer screening in the southern city of Maranhão

• Autor(a) principal: Cavalcanti, Gabriela Marques
• Data de Publicação: 2022
• Outros Autores: Sousa, Beatriz Machado Brandão, Pinho, Thalita Moraes Reis de, Alcântara, Alice de Miranda, Carvalho, Rebecca Victória Mendes, Teixeira, Cecilma Miranda de Sousa, Costa , Tibério Miranda
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Research, Society and Development
• Texto Completo: https://rsdjournal.org/index.php/rsd/article/view/27161
• topic: Teste de papanicolaou; Programas de rastreamento; Pandemia COVID-19; Neoplasias do colo do útero.; Papanicolaou test; Mass screening; COVID-19 pandemic; Uterine cervical neoplasms.; Prueba de papanicolaou; Tamizaje masivo; Pandemia de COVID-19; Neoplasias del cuello uterino.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a change in the profile of priority services in the Health System, with restriction of cervical cancer screening tests. The objective of this study is to identify the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cervical cancer screening in a city in the south of Maranhão. This is a descriptive, cross-sectional study with a quantitative approach carried out through the collection of secondary data. Cervical cytopathological exams performed between January 2019 and February 2020 and between March 2020 and September 2021 were analyzed. According to the data obtained, the age group of women with the lowest attendance at the exams was up to 29 years old, when compared to the pre-pandemic year. It was noted that there was a significant decrease in the number of screening tests performed during the pandemic, as well as a reduction in the detection of atypia and carcinomas in cytopathological samples. It is concluded that the pandemic had a negative impact on cervical cancer screening, which can lead to late diagnoses in the future, therefore requiring the promotion of strategies that alleviate this problem.