Abstract





Introduction: Cytological analysis has severally been demonstrated by many authors as a tool in the assessment of the uterine cervix. Indeed this inexpensive technique, developed by George Papanicolaou, is now widely accepted and used in achieving significant reduction in cervical lesions in several countries. Though the patterns of cervical cytology have been described in many developed (western world) countries, rural communities like Abraka have perhaps not benefited from this exercise.


Materials and Methods: The study is a cross sectional descriptive study, aimed at describing patterns of cervical cytology in Delta State University, Abraka with ethical approval from the ethics and research committee (ref: DELSU/CHS/ANA/68/19). The 255 females staff aged 20 – 70 years of this tertiary institution in the South-South region of Nigeria were screened, following adequate counseling and obtaining informed consent. Data from the study were analyzed using Chi Square of significance while the Kruskal Wallis test for nonparametric data showed that patterns were from the same sample area.


Result: The frequency of cervical squamous cell abnormalities in this study was 7.04%. They comprised ASC-US (3.14%), LSIL (3.53%) and HSIL (0.39%). The others had no intraepithelial cell lesion (normal, inflammatory and atrophic smears), with a few inadequate smears.


Conclusion: This study has established the patterns of cervical smears cytology among staff of Delta State University, Abraka where normal smears were seen in most of the participants in their 4th, 5th and 6th decade of life, while ASCUS, LSIL and HSIL were seen in the pre- menopausal and post-menopausal age. This will serves as a standard for further research in cervical cytology in selected population.


Keywords: Cytology, cervix, Papanicolaou, Smear