Screening history and FIGO-stages among Danish women with cervical cancer in 2012–2014: a register-based study

The objective was to examine whether attendance in the mass cervical screening programme has implications for the prognosis when cervical cancer is diagnosed. We performed a retrospective analysis of all cases of cervical cancer between 1st of January 2012 and 31st of December 2014 in the Region of Southern Denmark. The cases were retrieved from the Danish National Pathology Registry, PatoBank. Odds ratios (OR) with confidence intervals (95% CI) were calculated for attendees versus non-attendees of the screening programme by using χ2-test. 216 patients were included in the study. 61.6% of the study population had not attended the screening programme. Patients who had attended the programme were characterised by disease in low stage (OR = 3.14, 95% CI; 1.66 to 5.92), treatment with surgery alone (OR = 2.63, 95% CI; 1.49 to 4.64) and a lower risk of death (OR = 0.36, 95% CI; 0.15 to 0.87). Adenocarcinomas were more often detected among attendees of the programme compared to squamous cell carcinomas (OR = 4.06, 95% CI; 2.03 to 8.14). Statistically significant results regarding relapse of cancer (OR = 0.62, 95% CI; 0.23 to 1.68, p = 0.47) and lymph node metastases (OR = 0.62, 95% CI; 0.32 to 1.21, p = 0.19) were not found. Cervical cancer detected in women who had attended the mass cervical screening programme prior to the diagnosis, was shown to have a statistically significant lower FIGO stage (p = 0.0004) and was therefore linked to less extensive treatment options. Continued focus on increasing the participation rate of the programme is of importance, as the nonattendance rate continues to be high.