title: Ethnic patterns of cytologic abnormalities in cervical smears in suriname, a high-risk area for cervical cancer.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine the prevalence of cytologic abnormalities in cervical smears from women attending the first organized screening program in Suriname and to compare the prevalences in 4 Surinamese ethnicities with different cervical carcinoma incidences.
  
  
  METHODS
  Cervical scrapes were taken from women with 4 different ethnicities: Maroons, Amerindians, Javanese and Hindustani. Papanicolaou staining and cytologic screening were performed on 807 cervical smears. RESULTS Cervical cytologic abnormalities were seen in 13.4%, of which 8.1% (62 of 764) had atypical changes, 2.6% (20 of 764) had mild and 2.6% (20 of 764) had moderate and severe dysplasia/carcinoma in situ (CIS). The cytologic abnormalities varied between the ethnicities: 42.1% (83 of 197) in the Maroons and 2.3% (4 of 176), 5.0% (9 of 183) and 3.0% (6 of 208) in the Javanese, Amerindians, and Hindustani, respectively.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The high prevalence of moderate and severe dysplasia/CIS in all ethnicities correlates with the high cervical carcinoma incidence in Suriname. A significantly higher prevalence of mild abnormalities in the Maroons was observed; it did not reflect the relatively low cervical cancer incidence in this ethnicity. However, this can be explained by the possibility that these women have a different sexual lifestyle, leading to a higher prevalence of
authors.affiliation: Department of Pathology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands. c.f.w.vermeulen@lumc.nl
authors.forename: Christine F W
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Vermeulen
authors.forename: Antoon
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Grünberg
authors.forename: Lex A W
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Peters
authors.forename: Ingrid B S
authors.initials: IB
authors.lastname: van der Linden-Narain
authors.forename: M Albert
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Vrede
authors.forename: Eveline J T
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Krul
authors.forename: Friedo W
authors.initials: FW
authors.lastname: Dekker
authors.forename: Gert Jan
authors.initials: GJ
authors.lastname: Fleuren
mesh_terms: D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008403:Mass Screening; D016017:Odds Ratio; D065006:Papanicolaou Test; D015995:Prevalence; D013532:Suriname / Q000453:epidemiology; D014245:Trichomonas Infections / Q000208:ethnology / Q000473:pathology; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000473:pathology; D014626:Vaginal Smears; D002578:Uterine Cervical Dysplasia / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000473:pathology