Prevalence and predictors of squamous intraepithelial lesions in human immunodeficiency virus positive women in Sagamu, southwest Nigeria

BACKGROUND: Cervical cancer is still a public health problem in many developing countries, like Nigeria. HIV infection makes HPV infections last longer, progress to squamous intraepithelial lesion of the cervix, and eventually lead to invasive cervical cancer. OBJECTIVE: Find out how often squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL) happen and what causes them in HIV-positive women in Sagamu, southwest Nigeria. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was done with 165 women with HIV and 165 women without HIV. Pap smears were done on all of the people in the study. The data was looked at with IBM-SPSS Windows v. 23. RESULTS: Both groups were about the same age and had the same number of children (P=0.194 and P=0.388, respectively). The participants’ average age (SD) was 36.8 (5.6), and the median number of children they had was 3. HIV-positive women were much more likely to have an abnormal cytology smear (24.8%) than HIV-negative women (7.3%) (2 = 18.904, P 0.001). There wasn’t a link between having HIV and the severity of cervical lesions (2 = 3.66, P = 0.162). A CD4 cell count of less than 350 cells/mm(3)was found to be a strong predictor of an abnormal cervical cytological smear in HIV-positive women (AOR: 25.5; CI: 8.8-73.5; P 0.001). CONCLUSION: In Sagamu, Nigeria, the number of HIV-positive women with SIL of the cervix was much higher than the number of HIVnegative women with SIL of the cervix. HIV-positive women, especially those with a low number of CD4 cells, need cervical smear tests more often. This will make sure that pre-invasive lesions are found and treated as soon as possible.