Early diagnosis of cervical cancers. Our experience at the Rural Cancer Registry, Barshi, India.

In the cervical cancer cases registered at the Cancer Hospital at Barshi, India during 1988-90, 99 of the 105 cases were clinically staged (Total number of cases registered: 136). The annual number of cases were too few for a comparison of stage distribution between the registry years. However, comparison of the proportions of early cases (FIGO Ib, IIa & IIb) in each year, with the corresponding proportion in a large series at the Tata Memorial Hospital (TMH) in Bombay in 1988, showed that the proportions of early cases in 1988 & 1989 (0.31 and 0.35 respectively) were similar to that (0.30) in TMH but in 1990, it (0.50) was significantly higher (P < 0.01). The shift to early stages observed three years after the inception of the Registry is most likely due to the registry activity which involved inter-personal contact with the community and motivation of the symptomatics to undergo a medical investigation. These activities were designed to overcome the adverse conditions for cancer registration prevailing in the rural population. It is suggested that to achieve early diagnosis similar activities be incorporated in the initial phase of a cervical cancer control programme in the country, where cervical cancer is not only the predominant cancer in women but also the cases generally present themselves in advanced stages.