Monitoring the profile of cervical cancer in a developing city

BACKGROUND: Medical records are frequently consulted to verify whether the treatment and guiding principles were correct. Determine incidence and mortality trends of in situ and invasive neoplasms of the uterine cervix, in the period 1988–2004 in Goiânia, Brazil. METHODS: The incident cases were identified through the Population-Based Cancer Registry of Goiânia. Population data were collected from census data of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics. For mortality analysis, data were extracted from the Mortality Information System. The Poisson Regression was utilized to determine the annual incidence and mortality rates. RESULTS: A total of 4446 cases of in situ and invasive neoplasms of the uterine cervix were identified. No significant reductions were verified in invasive cervical cancer rates (p = 0.386) during the study period, while in situ carcinomas presented an annual increasing trend of 13.08% (p < 0.001). A decreasing trend was observed for mortality (3.02%, p = 0.017). CONCLUSION: No reduction was observed for the incidence of invasive cancer of the uterine cervix; however, increasing trends were verified for in situ lesions with a consequent reduction in mortality rates. These increasing trends may be the result of recently-implemented screening programs or due to improvements in the notification system.