Morbidity and mortality due to cervical cancer in Poland after introduction of the Act--National Programme for Control of Cancerous Diseases.

In 2005 in Poland, referring to the recommendations by the National Health Programme and recommendations by the European Union, the National Programme for Control of Cancerous Diseases was implemented by virtue of the Act, one of its basic assumptions being an improvement of oncologic awareness among the Polish population. It is expected that the result of actions in this respect will be an increase in reporting rates for prophylactic examinations and a decrease in the number of deaths due to cancerous diseases. The objective of the study was presentation of the analysis of morbidity and mortality due to cervical cancer in Poland and in individual regions, after the implementation of the National Programme for Control of Cancerous Diseases. The data was obtained from the Oncology Centre and from the computer Information System for Prophylaxis Monitoring (SIMP). In the analysis of obtained results, qualitative variables distribution was defined by means of the following values: number of instances (n) and frequency (%) with which they occur in a given category. The frequencies with which these categories of variables occur were compared by means of the chi-squared test with Yates' correction. The permissible error probability of the first type (p-value) is assumed to equal 0.05. The statistical assessment of results was performed by means of STATISTICA PL statistical software, version 9.0. In Poland in 2010, as many as 3,078 female patients suffered from with cervical cancer, compared with 3,263 in 2005, i.e. prior to implementation of The National Cancer Prevention Programme Act. Therefore, it can be concluded that there was a decline in cervical cancer incidence of 5.7%. As regards the mortality rate, there was a decline of 3.4%. A comparison of the cervical cancer morbidity and mortality rate for Poland and its provinces between 2005-2010 showed statistically significant differences only for morbidity rate - a decline in frequency in the entire Polish territory and in the following provinces: Lublin, Łódź, Lesser Poland, and Greater Poland, as well as an increase in the morbidity rate in Kuyavian-Pomeranian province.