Abstract:

Background: Cervical cancer is the third most common malignancy in women worldwide, and it is the second in developing countries where as it is a leading cause of cancer-related death for women in developing countries. While incidence and mortality rates of cervical cancer have fallen significantly in developed countries, 83% of all new cases that occur annually and 85% of all death from the disease occur in developing countries.

Method: A retrospective hospital based cross sectional study was done involving 460 women with cervical carcinoma who were admitted at BMC from January 2011 to December 2013. Data was collected through histological registry books and medical records using a coded checklist. Data entry and analysis was done using Microsoft excel and SPSS 17.0 computer program respectively.

Results: A total of 460 women were reviewed. The most risk factors which were presented by the large percentage of women were early age at first sexual intercourse 97.4%, multiparity 75.4%, history of STD 43.3%, and history of multiple sexual partners 37%, other risk factors presented by few women were contraceptives use 18.3%, history of cancer in family 10.9%, smoking 9.6% and history of being married to a husband with more than 1 wife 6.1%. With the commonest histological type being SCC 86.1%.

Conclusion: Cervical cancer continue to be a major public problem in Tanzania, affecting both pre and post-menopausal women, and most premenopausal women affected are HIV positive. In this study 33% of the study population were HIV positive, hence there is a need for cervical cancer screening for all women who are HIV positive because they have greater incidence of developing both CIN and invasive cervical cancer which tend to be progressive and aggressive.