Tohoku J. Exp. Med., 2004, 204(3)

Cervical Cytologic Examination During Physical Checkup of Pregnant Women: Cervical Cancer Screening in Women Under the Age of Thirty

YORIKO ABE, KIYOSHI ITO, CHIKAKO OKAMURA, HITOSHI NIIKURA, YUKIHIRO TERADA, TAKASHI MURAKAMI, TADAO TAKANO, NOBUYOSHI OZAWA,¹ HIROSHI NAGAI,¹ YUICHI WADA,² SHIGEKI UEHARA,³ TAKANORI WATANABE,⁴ SHINGO TANIGAWARA,⁵ SHIGESATO WAGATSUMA,⁶ YUJI YOSHIDA,⁷ TSUKASA IGARASHI,⁸ MASAKUNI SUZUKI,⁹ KIMIO NAKAGAWA,¹⁰ KUNIHIRO OKAMURA and NOBUO YAEGASHI

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tohoku University, Sendai, ¹Miyagi Prefecture Branch, Japanese Medical Association of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Sendai, ²National Sendai Hospital, Sendai, ³Tohoku Kousai Hospital, Sendai, ⁴Sendai Municipal Hospital, Sendai, ⁵Sendai Red Cross Hospital, Sendai, ⁶Furukawa Municipal Hospital, Furukawa, ⁷Sanuma Municipal General Hospital, Sanuma, ⁸Miyako Prefectial Hospital, Miyako, ⁹Suzuki Hospital, Iwadeyama, and ¹⁰Nakagawa Obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital, Furukawa, Japan

Recently, the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare proposed that cervical cancer screening should be conducted for women aged 20 to 29 years old in Japan. However, there are insufficient data available in Japan concerning the screening conducted for women under the age of 30. Therefore, we made a survey of the results of cervical cytologic examination for pregnant women. 28 616 pregnant women were examined as subjects of a study group. A group of 108 289 women, subjected to group screening for cervical cancer in Miyagi Prefecture, were studied as a control group. The rate of subjects who required close examination in the pregnant women’s group was significantly higher than that in the mass screening group (1.12% vs. 0.84%). The rate of close examination was significantly higher in the women 19 years old or younger compared to those in the age group of 25 to 39 years old. The rate was also significantly higher in women aged 20 to 24 years old than those who are 25 to 34 years old. Of the 321 subjects who required close examination, 34 cases underwent treatment, and 17 cases were under age 30. Moreover, all three cases of microinvasive and/or invasive carcinoma were under the age of 30 years (23, 23, 27 years old, respectively). Our results suggest that screening for cervical cancer in pregnancy is a useful means to find cervical neoplasia in young women and is effective in reducing the cervical cancer morbidity rate.

keywords —— cervical cancer; examination; pregnancy; young women; mass screening

© 2004 Tohoku University Medical Press

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Address for reprints: Kiyoshi Ito, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Tohoku University, 1-1 Seiryo-machi, Aoba-ku, Sendai 980-8574, Japan.

e-mail: kito@mail.tains.tohoku.ac.jp