Evaluation of human papillomavirus self-collection offered by community health workers at home visits among under-screened women in Brazil.
OBJECTIVE
To explore the acceptability of high-risk human papillomavirus self-testing, involving community health workers, for never/under-screened Brazilian women. Cervical cancer is the most common cause of cancer-related death among adult women in a large number of low-income and lower-middle-income countries, where it remains a major public health problem. High-risk human papillomavirus persistence is required for the development of cervical neoplasia.


METHODS
The target population was all women aged 30+ from the list of families available in healthcare centre data, who had never been screened or were not screened in the previous 3 years (under-screened women), and who were living in the 17 cities included in this study.


RESULTS
Of the 377 women included, 16.9% (n = 64) had never had a pap smear. Of all samples included in the study, 97.1% (n = 366) were considered adequate for evaluation, as 2.9% (n = 11) were considered invalid for all high-risk human papillomavirus types. Analysing these 366 samples, 9.6% (n = 35) of the women were infected by at least one high-risk human papillomavirus type and 90.4% (n = 331) had no infection with any high-risk type of the virus.


CONCLUSIONS
Vaginal self-sampling is an adequate strategy to improve the effectiveness of the cervical cancer program by increasing screening in a high-risk group.
['Pantano|Naitielle de Paula|NP|0000-0002-8854-4533', 'Fregnani|José H|JH|', 'Resende|Júlio Cp|JC|', 'Zeferino|Luiz C|LC|', 'Fonseca|Bruno de Oliveira|BO|0000-0002-2052-9249', 'Antoniazzi|Márcio|M|', 'Oliveira|Cristina M de|CM|', "Sant'ana|Gisele da Rocha|GDR|", 'Longatto-Filho|Adhemar|A|']
D000328:Adult D052685:Alphapapillomavirus D001938:Brazil D003150:Community Health Workers D003695:Delivery of Health Care D055088:Early Detection of Cancer D005260:Female D006792:House Calls D006801:Humans D008403:Mass Screening D065006:Papanicolaou Test D027383:Papillomaviridae D030361:Papillomavirus Infections D012648:Self Care D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms D014626:Vaginal Smears
Gynecological examination mass screening papanicolaou test papillomaviridae uterine cervical neoplasms