Risk factors and prevalence of cervical squamous intraepithelial lesions among women in South India: A community?based cross?sectional study

Background: Cervical cancer in India accounts for one-fifth of the global burden. Well-defined precancerous stages help early detection of the disease. Apart from human papillomavirus, the risk factors include age, education, occupation, early age at marriage and first delivery, abortions, and multiple sexual partners. Prevalence and risk factors for cervical squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL) among women by Pap smear screening in south India were analyzed through a cross-sectional study. Methods: Women from rural and urban area were motivated by local accredited social health activists to attend pre-fixed Pap smear clinics in government hospitals. Pap smears collected in these clinics were taken to the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, processed, and cytology reports were prepared. Multiple logistic regression analysis was used to identify risk factors for SIL and high-grade SIL (HSIL). Results: The number of SIL was 67 out of 10,580 and HSIL was 39. Having higher education (Odds Ratio, OR:0.05(95% Confidence Interval, CI: 0.01-0.2), being married but living single (OR : 5.3, 95%CI:2.4-11.5), Having >2 abortions (OR:21, 95% CI:4.5-24), having younger age at delivery (OR : 0.1, 95% CI:0.01-0.3) and having unhealthy cervix (OR: 16.4, 95% CI:6.2-42.7) were the factors found to be the associated risk factors in multiple regression analysis. Conclusion: Pap smear screening can be focused on women with risk factors such as low education, married but living single, having >2 abortions, younger age at delivery, and unhealthy cervix on per speculum examination.

Effects of socio-economic and demographic factors in delayed reporting and late-stage presentation among patients with breast cancer in a major cancer hospital in South India.

OBJECTIVE: We analyzed the distribution of socio-economic and demographic (SEDs) factors among breast cancer patients and assessed their impact on the stage at diagnosis of the disease and symptom duration. METHODS: Data for the year 2006 was collected from the Hospital Based Cancer Registry, Regional Cancer Centre (RCC), Trivandrum, Kerala, India. Patients (n=522) were included if they were from native Kerala state or adjoining Tamil Nadu. SEDS factors included age, residing district, religion, marital status, income, education and occupation. Other study variables were menopausal status, parity, listed symptoms with duration and stage at diagnosis. Association between SEDs factors by stage at diagnosis and duration of symptoms was tested using chi-square statistics, with odds ratios (OR) estimated through logistic regression modeling. RESULTS: Forty-five percent were reported at early stages and 53% at late stages. Elevated risks for late stage reporting among breast cancer patients were observed for women who were unmarried (OR=3.31; 95%CI: 1.10-9.96), widowed/divorced (OR=1.46; 95%CI: 0.89-2.37), with lower education (OR=2.72; 95%CI: 1.06-7.03 for illiterate women and OR=2.32; 95%CI: 1.05-5.13 for women with primary school education and OR=2.07; 95%CI: 1.02-4.21 for women with middle school education) and post-menopausal women (OR=1.45; 95%CI: 0.97-2.19). CONCLUSIONS: This analysis helped to identify the target population group for receiving health education for early detection of breast cancer.

Impact of socio-economic factors in delayed reporting and late-stage presentation among patients with cervix cancer in a major cancer hospital in South India.

The impact of socio- economic and demographic status (SEDS) factors on the stage of cervical cancer rat diagnosis, symptom duration and delay-time from diagnosis to registration was determined by analysing data for the year 2006 from the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC), Trivandrum, Kerala, India. Patients (n=349) were included if they were from the states of Kerala or Tamil Nadu. SEDS factors included age, residing district, religion, marital status, income, education and occupation. Associations between SEDS factors by stage at diagnosis and symptom duration were tested using chi-square statistics with odds ratios (OR) estimated through logistic regression modeling. Elevated risks for late stage reporting among cervical cancer patients were observed for women who were widowed/divorced (OR=2.08; 95%CI: 1.24-3.50) and had a lower education (OR=2.62; 95%CI:1.29-5.31 for women with primary school education only). Patients who had symptoms of bleeding/bleeding with other symptoms (77%) were more likely to seek treatment within one month, compared to patients with other symptoms only (23%) (p=0.016). This analysis helped to identify populations at increased risk of diagnosis at later stages of cancer with the ultimate intent of providing health education and detecting cancer at earlier stages.

Assessment of confounding and interaction using the mantel-haenszel risk estimation method.

The association between an exposure of interest (risk factor) and a disease may be confounded by the action of other separate factors as well as by interactions between risk factors exerting an impact. Crude measures of effect may be misleading in such situations. Levels of the potential confounding factor could be estimated using stratified analysis. Uniformity of the stratum-specific effect estimates can be assessed by performing chi-square tests for heterogeneity. If the effect is uniform across strata, we can calculate a pooled adjusted summary estimate of the effect using the Mantel-Haenzel (M-H) method. Confidence intervals for the adjusted estimate and the M-H chi-square test are calculated to assess the significance. If the effect is not uniform (presence of interaction), we report stratum-specific estimates, confidence intervals and chi-square for each estimate. In the present paper, assessment of the level of confounding and interaction between risk factors are illustrated using a case-control study of lung cancer conducted at the Regional Cancer Centre, Trivandrum.