Clinical audit of patients with cervical cancer in slovenia -Data analysis for the year 2003

Purpose of investigation: The data gathered in 2003 on the patients with cervical cancer who regularly attended their gynecologist were analyzed with the purpose of clinical audit.

Methods: The data on newly detected patients with cervical cancer in 2003 who regularly attended their gynecologist were gathered simultaneously at three Advisory Boards for Gynecology in Slovenia.

Results: Of 149 patients in whom, according to our data, invasive cervical cancer had been diagnosed, 92 (61.7%) patients were examined by a gynecologist in the previous five years. In the majority of these patients, cervical cancer was diagnosed in early, localized disease stage. In the periods of 13-24 and of seven to 12 months before the diagnosis of cervical cancer, almost half the patients had Pap II, and three to six months before diagnosis, 67.6% of patients had Pap II.

Conclusion: These results encourage us to proceed with clinical audits to analyze individual cervical cancer cases, including another independent reevaluation of cervical smears in the five-year period before diagnosis. A suitable calendar of refresher training courses on colposcopy, which should be obligatory for all performing this examination method, also needs to be set up.

Clinical audit; Cervical cancer; State screening program; Premalignant cervical disease

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