By Michelle Dubon | Medical Director at WINGS
As the Medical Director for WINGS Guatemala, I am proud to present last year’s cervical cancer prevention results, which you can now check in our recently published 2017 Annual Report. In 2017 alone, we screened 3,345 women, we detected 135 positive cases, and we were able to treat 84 of them using cryotherapy.
As you may know, we use visual inspection with acetic acid (VIA) to detect precancerous cells, an effective and simple method that allows us to deliver immediate results and treat some of the abnormalities straightaway. The VIA technique is recommended for women between the ages of 25 and 50, as this method may diagnose false positives in patients out of that age range. Last year, 872 women chose WINGS to get a cervical cancer screening for the first time. This means 26% of the women we examined had not been screened before the age of 25.
All women should begin to get cervical cancer screenings upon initiating sexual activity. However, according to the Guatemalan Ministry of Health, only 3.7% of women between 15 and 19 years has ever had a pap smear. This percentage increases to 24.8% in the age range between 20 and 24 years, and to 52.9% in ages 25-29, but it does not reach 70% until the age of 35. We find this data exceedingly worrying, as the average age of Guatemalan women’s first sexual intercourse is 15 (Ministry of Health, 2015).
WINGS offers free cervical cancer screenings in all our contraception and surgery clinics. We counsel our patients on the importance of taking care of themselves and how getting examined is part of that self-care. It takes a lot of courage to decide to have a cervical cancer screening if you have never done it before. Some of our patients hesitate to get screened, because they are afraid we might find abnormalities and that they might be too late to treat. It fills our hearts with joy every time a woman decides to take the plunge and have a VIA for the first time. This step is certainly essential to ensure their good health and peace of mind.
Thank you very much for supporting these brave women.
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