Impact of socio-demographic factors on the delayed diagnosis and advanced stage presentation of patients with invasive cervical cancer in Macedonia.

AIM The study aims to establish certain socio-demographic factors associated with delayed presentation (i.e. advanced stage at diagnosis) in patients with invasive cervical cancer in Macedonia. MATERIALS AND METHODS The cross-sectional study was conducted with patients already diagnosed and treated for invasive cancer of the uterine cervix who came in for their regular annual check-up at the University Radiotherapy and Oncology Clinic, Medical Faculty, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, Macedonia. The data were collected by interviewing the participants using a standardized questionnaire. RESULTS A total of 115 patients were recruited in the study. Eight of them were excluded from further analysis due to incomplete data. Close to 72% of the patients analysed presented with advanced stage disease, while 28.04% of the patients were diagnosed with early stage disease. The univariate analysis and Chi-square statistics showed that the patients had a higher probability of being diagnosed with advanced stage disease if they had a low monthly income (p = 0.01), had lower degrees of education (p < 0.001), had an unsatisfactory level of genital hygiene (p < 0.001) and had no family history of invasive cervical cancer in first degree female relatives (p = 0.003). DISCUSSION The results from the study could be utilized to identify the population at risk which should be targeted for implementation of specialized educational programmes for familiarizing the population with the nature of the disease which in turn would increase the level of consciousness as a step towards implementing a national screening programme.