Abstract:

Background: Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer and cause of cancer-related death for women worldwide. Approximately 90% of intraepithelial neoplasia is attributed to human papilloma virus (HPV) infection. The risk for developing cervical cancer is associated with early age of first intercourse, multiple sexual partners, smoking and infection with HPV, use oral contraceptive for a longer period and occupation are the risk factors for the developing cervical cancer mortality due to cervical cancer is also an indicator of health inequities, as 85% of all deaths due to cervical cancer are in developing, low and middle income countries.

Objective: To determine the prevalence and factor associated with via positive among women attending cervical cancer screening at Bugando medical centre from January 2016 – December 2018.

Method: Retrospective cross section study design was used in this study with a minimum sample size of 136 a designed checklist was used to obtain information from patient’s files. Analysis was done by using SPSS version 20.

Results: In this study a total of 140 women files were recruited, where by 52.9% were all the women who screened in the year 2018, 22.9% were in the years 2017 and 24.3% were in the year 2016. Majority of women had > 35 years with 61.4%, followed by 25-35 years with 27.5% and lastly 18-25 with 10.7%. In this study factors for VIA positive were being HIV positive, grand multiparity, old age and poor health seeking behavior. And the prevalence of VIA positive was 18.6%.

Conclusion: Cervical cancer continues to be a public health problem in Tanzania, but screening using VIA is practical and feasible even in rural settings. These preliminary results from a retrospective cross section study from 2016 to 2018 at Bugando medical centre should be expanded to develop a complete national picture for Tanzania.