THE SCREENING FOR CERVICAL CANCER IN WOMEN OVER 60 YEARS.

Cervical cancer is a condition more and more often met in elderly women. Most screening programs do not include women over 65, based on the general acceptance that the period of maximal, vulnerability' to this neoplasm is over. This study was carried out on 260 women over 60 years to whom a Pap smear was performed as a screening of cervical cancer. The rate of non-participation was 21%. The cytologic results were within the normal range in 82,3 % of the cases, had a low degree of abnormalities (CIN 1, ASCUS, AGUS) in 14,5%, a high degree of abnormalities (CIN 2, CIN 3, carcinoma) in 3,2% of the cases. For two of the women involved the suspicion of squamous cell carcinoma was confirmed histologically. The screening for cervical cancer makes sense in women over 60 too, especially for those who had no cervical cytological investigations in their life, or only had them randomly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]