Changing the paradigm of cervical cancer prevention through introduction of HPV-testing: evaluation of the implementation process of the Jujuy Demonstration Project in Argentina

Implementation of WHO guidelines for cervical cancer screening, diagnosis and treatment: knowledge and perceptions of health providers from Argentina

BACKGROUND

The 2021 World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines on cervical cancer screening and treatment provide countries with evidence-based recommendations to accelerate disease elimination. However, evidence shows that health providers' adherence to screening guidelines is low. We conducted a study in Argentina to analyze health providers' knowledge and perceptions regarding the 2021 WHO Guidelines.

METHODS

A qualitative study was conducted based on individual, semi-structured interviews with health providers specializing in gynecology (n = 15). The themes explored were selected and analyzed using domains and constructs of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research.

RESULTS

Although health providers perceive WHO as a reliable institution, they do not know the 2021 guidelines, its supporting evidence, and its elaboration process. Their clinical practice is mainly guided by local recommendations developed by national professional medical associations (PMAs). For interviewees, WHO guidelines should be disseminated through health authorities and national PMAs, mainly through in-service training. Health providers had a positive assessment regarding WHO Recommendation 1 (screen, triage, and treatment for women aged 30 + with HPV-testing every 5 to 10 years) and perceived a favorable climate for its implementation. HPV-testing followed by triage was considered a low-complexity practice, enabling a better detection of HPV, a better selection of the patients who will need diagnosis and treatment, and a more efficient use of health system resources. However, they suggested adapting this recommendation by removing screening interval beyond 5 years. WHO Recommendation 2 (screen-and-treat approach with HPV-testing for women aged 30 + every 5 to 10 years) was predominantly rejected by interviewees, was considered an algorithm that did not respond to women's needs, and was not adequate for the Argentinean context. Regarding the HPV-test modality, clinician-collected tests were the preferred mode. Health providers considered that HPV self-collection should be used primarily among socially vulnerable women to increase screening coverage.

CONCLUSION

WHO guidelines should be widely disseminated among health providers, especially in settings that could benefit from a screen-and-treat approach. Identifying areas of partnership and collaboration with PMAs in implementing WHO guidelines is essential.

High frequency of alpha7-HPV in Colombian Caribbean coast women: cervical cancer screening analysis

BACKGROUND

Cervical cancer (CC) is a significant global public health concern, particularly in developing countries such as Colombia. The main risk factor involves high-risk HPV types (HR-HPV) infection, coupled with population-specific variables. The Caribbean region in Colombia lacks research on HR-HPV-type frequencies. Therefore, this study aims to establish the prevalence of type-specific HR-HPV and its association with sociodemographic factors among women undergoing cervical cytology screening.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study involving voluntary women who provided informed consent and completed a questionnaire capturing sociodemographic, clinical, and sexual behavior information was conducted. All participants underwent cervical cytology and molecular analysis. Generic HPV detection employed three simultaneous PCRs (GP5+/6+, MY09/11, and PU1R/2 M), and positive samples were genotyped using the Optiplex HPV Genotyping kit. The analysis encompassed the 12 types of high-risk HPV (HR-HPV-16,-18,-31,-33,-35,-39,-45,-51,-52,-56,-58, and - 59). Frequencies were reported based on geographic subregions within the Córdoba department, and disparities were made between single and multiple infections. Sociodemographic and clinical variables were subjected to ordinal logistic regression, with statistical significance at a p-value < 0.05. The statistical analyses utilized STATA 14® and R-Core Team-software.

RESULTS

We included 450 women, mean age 40 (SD±11.44). PCR analysis revealed 43% HPV-positive (n=192). GP5+/6+ detected the most positives at 26% (n=119), followed by PU1R/2 M at 22% (n = 100) and MY09/11 at 15% (n=69). Multiple infections occurred in 87.3% (n=142), primarily 2 to 4 types (47.37%, n=90). Dominant types were HPV-18 (15.6%, n=61), HPV-16 (14.9%, n=58), HPV-31 (13.0%, n = 51), and HPV-45 (11.5%, n=45). Logistic regression identified age above 60 as a risk for concurrent multiple types (OR=6.10; 95% CI 1.18-31.63). Menopause was protective (OR=0.31; 95% CI 0.11-0.89).

CONCLUSIONS

Our study reveals a notable prevalence of multiple (2-4) high-risk HPV infections among adult women engaged in CC detection initiatives. Predominantly, α7 species constitute the prevalent HR-viral types, with the Medio Sinú subregion showing elevated prevalence. Menopausal status confers protection against diverse HR-HPV infections. Nevertheless, advancing age, particularly beyond 60 years, is linked to an increased susceptibility to simultaneous infections by multiple HPV-types.

Quantification of impact of COVID-19 pandemic on cancer screening programmes - a case study from Argentina, Bangladesh, Colombia, Morocco, Sri Lanka, and Thailand

It is quite well documented that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted cancer screening services in all countries, irrespective of their resources and healthcare settings. While quantitative estimates on reduction in volume of screening tests or diagnostic evaluation are readily available from the high-income countries, very little data are available from the low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). From the CanScreen5 global cancer screening data repository we identified six LMICs through purposive sampling based on the availability of cancer screening data at least for the years 2019 and 2020. These countries represented those in high human development index (HDI) categories (Argentina, Colombia, Sri Lanka, and Thailand) and medium HDI categories (Bangladesh and Morocco). No data were available from low HDI countries to perform similar analysis. The reduction in the volume of tests in 2020 compared to the previous year ranged from 14.1% in Bangladesh to 72.9% in Argentina (regional programme) for cervical screening, from 14.2% in Bangladesh to 49.4% in Morocco for breast cancer screening and 30.7% in Thailand for colorectal cancer screening. Number of colposcopies was reduced in 2020 compared to previous year by 88.9% in Argentina, 38.2% in Colombia, 27.4% in Bangladesh, and 52.2% in Morocco. The reduction in detection rates of CIN 2 or worse lesions ranged from 20.7% in Morocco to 45.4% in Argentina. Reduction of breast cancer detection by 19.1% was reported from Morocco. No association of the impact of pandemic could be seen with HDI categories. Quantifying the impact of service disruptions in screening and diagnostic tests will allow the programmes to strategize how to ramp up services to clear the backlogs in screening and more crucially in further evaluation of screen positives. The data can be used to estimate the impact on stage distribution and avoidable mortality from these common cancers.

Ten Steps to Design a Counseling App to Reduce the Psychosocial Impact of Human Papillomavirus Testing on the Basis of a User-Centered Design Approach in a Low- and Middle-Income Setting

PURPOSE

This study describes the 10 steps followed to produce the information architecture of a user-centered design (UCD) counseling mobile application, the first phase to develop an app. The app aims to reduce the psychosocial impact of the human papillomavirus test result and improve women's knowledge of human papilloma virus and cervical cancer.

METHODS

We used a UCD approach to produce the information architecture of the app (ie, how to organize contents into features). We analyzed field notes, meeting agendas, and documentation produced during each stage of the design process. We described the goals, methods, and outcomes of each step. We also discussed the critical challenges and the strategies to address them.

RESULTS

The steps are (1) knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs mapping: reanalysis of team's research findings from prior studies; (2) environmental scanning of apps available on the market; (3) stakeholders' point of view: The International Advisory Committee; (4) potential user's profile: building archetypes through the Persona method; (5) women's interviews: user's preferences and experiences; (6) effective features: scoping review to select app's features that address psychosocial impact; (7) the user journey: ideal interaction with the gynecological service and the counseling app; (8) women's focus groups: using Personas and Scenarios to discuss app's mock-up; (9) women's design sessions: prototype test and card-sorting techniques; and (10) team's design session: translating results into visual objects and features.

CONCLUSION

We provide here detailed descriptions of the UCD process of an app for human papillomavirus-tested women for those venturing into the area of mHealth strategies work. Our experience can be used as a guide for future mHealth app development for a low- and middle-income setting.

Improving intervention design to promote cervical cancer screening among hard-to-reach women: assessing beliefs and predicting individual attendance probabilities in Bogotá, Colombia

Background

Despite being a preventable disease, cervical cancer continues to be a public health concern, affecting mainly lower and middle-income countries. Therefore, in Bogotá a home-visit based program was instituted to increase screening uptake. However, around 40% of the visited women fail to attend their Pap smear test appointments. Using this program as a case study, this paper presents a methodology that combines machine learning methods, using routinely collected administrative data, with Champion’s Health Belief Model to assess women’s beliefs about cervical cancer screening. The aim is to improve the cost-effectiveness of behavioural interventions aiming to increase attendance for screening. The results presented here relate specifically to the case study, but the methodology is generic and can be applied in all low-income settings.

Methods

This is a cross-sectional study using two different datasets from the same population and a sequential modelling approach. To assess beliefs, we used a 37-item questionnaire to measure the constructs of the CHBM towards cervical cancer screening. Data were collected through a face-to-face survey (N = 1699). We examined instrument reliability using Cronbach’s coefficient and performed a principal component analysis to assess construct validity. Then, Kruskal–Wallis and Dunn tests were conducted to analyse differences on the HBM scores, among patients with different poverty levels. Next, we used data retrieved from administrative health records (N = 23,370) to fit a LASSO regression model to predict individual no-show probabilities. Finally, we used the results of the CHBM in the LASSO model to improve its accuracy.

Results

Nine components were identified accounting for 57.7% of the variability of our data. Lower income patients were found to have a lower Health motivation score (p-value < 0.001), a higher Severity score (p-value < 0.001) and a higher Barriers score (p-value < 0.001). Additionally, patients between 25 and 30 years old and with higher poverty levels are less likely to attend their appointments (O.R 0.93 (CI: 0.83–0.98) and 0.74 (CI: 0.66–0.85), respectively). We also found a relationship between the CHBM scores and the patient attendance probability. Average AUROC score for our prediction model is 0.9.

Conclusion

In the case of Bogotá, our results highlight the need to develop education campaigns to address misconceptions about the disease mortality and treatment (aiming at decreasing perceived severity), particularly among younger patients living in extreme poverty. Additionally, it is important to conduct an economic evaluation of screening options to strengthen the cervical cancer screening program (to reduce perceived barriers). More widely, our prediction approach has the potential to improve the cost-effectiveness of behavioural interventions to increase attendance for screening in developing countries where funding is limited.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12905-022-01800-3.

Implementation of HPV Tests in Latin America: What We Learned; What Should We Have Learned, and What Can We Do Better?

Cervical cancer is caused by HPV. Although it is the fourth most common type of cancer diagnosed and the fourth cause of cancer death, cervical cancer is nearly completely preventable because of the vaccination and screening available. The present review aims to map the initiatives conducted to implement or evaluate the implementation of HPV testing in Latin American countries. We performed the review by searching on PubMed in the English language and on grey literature, as most of the information about the guidelines used was found in governmental websites in the Spanish language. We only found information in eight countries concerning HPV testing as primary screening. Only Mexico has established HPV-based screening in all territories. There are three countries with regional implementation. Two countries with pilot studies indicated results that supported implementation. Finally, there are another two countries with a national recommendation. We have learned that HPV implementation is feasible and a very promising tool for reducing cervical cancer morbidity and mortality. The costs associated with saving lives and reducing suffering due to morbidity of a preventable disease must be pragmatically evaluated by the Latin America governments, and improving outcomes must be a mandatory priority for those that are responsible for addressing an organized system of cervical cancer screening.

Acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility of the Latin American and Caribbean Code against Cancer: perceptions of decision-makers and health professionals in Argentina

Background

Cancer is an important public health problem. In Latin America and the Caribbean, there were approximately 1,500,000 new cases of cancer and 700,000 deaths due to cancer in 2020. These figures will increase by 78% by 2040 to more than 2.5 million people diagnosed with cancer each year, who will require medical attention, care and support. However, it is estimated that at least 40% of cancers could be prevented by adopting a healthier lifestyle, reducing risky behaviours and implementing recommended health interventions.

Objective

To evaluate the perceptions of health decision-makers and professionals regarding the Latin American and Caribbean Code against Cancer (CLCC) as a support tool for designing and implementing public policies for cancer prevention and control (acceptability, appropriateness and feasibility) in Argentina.

Methods

A qualitative study was conducted using individual, semi-structured interviews with health decision-makers and professionals (n = 30). The questions and thematic analysis of the information gathered have been guided by the principles of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research: intervention characteristics, outer setting, inner setting and characteristics of individuals.

Results

Health professionals and health decision-makers broadly accepted the proposal of the CLCC as a tool for supporting the design and implementation of public policies for cancer prevention and control, and considered it to be appropriate. Additionally, from the interviewees' perspective, factors should be ensured to guarantee the implementation of the CLCC as a viable public health policy. They also felt it was right to take the CECC as a model and to adapt its content to the specific characteristics of the Latin American population, customs, lifestyle habits, epidemiological characteristics and, in particular, the Argentinian socio-economic context. Interviewees perceived the CLCC as a health intervention whose complexity varied depending on the recommendation, although most of them were feasible. The broad consensus among the interviewees was that the development of the CLCC could yield numerous advantages in improving cancer prevention and control policy, and responding to the needs of the population. It was also considered to be an opportunity to introduce fundamental changes. With regard to the implementation of the CLCC, interviewees reported a favourable institutional climate, since they perceived that it would receive a priority equal to or greater than the ongoing prevention measures, and that it would have the commitment of the health authorities. They also felt that the implementation of the CLCC in their work environment would not be very complicated, and that the decision-makers and professionals had the necessary capacity to implement it. Finally, they felt that the implementation would be facilitated by the participation and consensus of health decision-makers at the primary care level, and negotiation with industrial and environmental sectors.

Conclusions

Our study shows that health professionals and decision-makers consider the CLCC to be highly acceptable, appropriate and feasible. This would facilitate its implementation as a tool that could enhance current cancer prevention and control policies in Argentina. The results of the study indicate the necessity for the CLCC to be adapted to the socio-economic context of Argentina, and highlight that population adherence to the CLCC recommendations will depend on complex and diverse factors, especially those involving changing unhealthy behaviours linked to cancer risk.