Prevalence of precancerous lesions of the uterine cervix according to VIA, VILI and cytological aspect: analysis of usefulness of combination

Abstract

Precancerous lesions mostly evolve into cancer of the cervix, which is a major health problem worldwide and particularly in developing countries as Cameroon. The study was initiated to determine the prevalence of cervical uterine lesions using visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) and visual inspection with Lugol’s iodine (VILI) and cytology techniques. During this descriptive study, 800 women were enrolled, their mean age was 45±6.3 years old, VIA, VILI and cytology allowed us to determine the prevalence of precancerous lesions which presented a rate of 20.52%. These three techniques helped us also to identify the usefulness to combined many methods one time for diagnose. The age was swinging between 20 to 30 years age, this suggest many women in Cameroon are in risk to develop cervical cancer. An observation of the marital status showed that: 44% of the women were single, 33% were married, and 11% were widowed whereas the status of 12% of the women was unknown. Among pathologies identified by cytology, dysplasia occupied 39.02% while condylomas represented 11%. The performance of the test used respectively represented 56% and 65.8% of specificity for the VIA and VILI, the sensitivity was 76.3% for VIA and 72% for VILI. Around 20.52% of Cameroonian women have precancerous lesions probably induced by a bad management of their sexual live, and this at the early stages of their life extended from 20 to 30 years old. The combination of the three techniques increased the accuracy of test. These results showed the usefulness to frequently take part to screening of precancerous lesions this can help to early detect lesions and reduce their prevalence.