A self-administered device for cervical cancer screening in northeast Thailand.
OBJECTIVE
To test a self-scraping device as a mass screening device against a routine scraping method and to evaluate the acceptance of the self-scraping device by a group of rural females from Northeast Thailand.


METHODS
From a rural area of Northeast Thailand, 552 women were trained and motivated, through primary health care structures, to participate in a cervical cancer screening exercise using a self-scraping device. After one week, the same females were reexamined by gynecologists using the routine scraping method. In both cases the specimens were stained according to Papanicolaou. Through questionnaires the acceptance of the self-scraping device was evaluated.


RESULTS
Through the self-scraping method, 13 cases suspicious for malignancy were detected. Specimens obtained through examination by physicians confirmed 11 cases to be suspicious for malignancy. No false negative cases were found. In the detection of inflammation, the self-scraping method was not as accurate as examination by a physician. The device was accepted by the females who participated in the study.


CONCLUSIONS
In the rural areas of developing countries, where physicians and other trained medical personnel are not often available to carry out regular screening tests on a population basis, the self-scraping method can be applied as an integral part of primary health care for mass screening for uterine cervical cancer.
Pengsaa
P
P
Cancer Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.
Vatanasapt
V
V
Sriamporn
S
S
Sanchaisuriya
P
P
Schelp
F P
FP
Noda
S
S
Kato
S
S
Kongdee
W
W
Kanchanawirojkul
N
N
Aranyasen
O
O
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D065006:Papanicolaou Test; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000379:methods; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D013785:Thailand; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014626:Vaginal Smears / Q000379:methods*