Abstract
Background
Cervical cancer is one of the most common malignancies affecting women worldwide with large geographic variations in prevalence and mortality rates. It is one of the leading causes of cancer-related deaths in Ethiopia, where vaccination and screening are less implemented. However, there is a scarcity of literature in the field. Therefore, the objective of this review was to describe current developments in cervical cancer in the Ethiopian context. The main topics presented were the burden of cervical cancer, knowledge of women about the disease, the genotype distribution of Human papillomavirus (HPV), vaccination, and screening practices in Ethiopia.
Methods
Published literature in the English language on the above topics until May 2021 were retrieved from PubMed/Medline, SCOPUS, Google Scholar, and the Google database using relevant searching terms. Combinations of the following terms were considered to retrieve literature; < Cervical cancer, uterine cervical neoplasms, papillomavirus infections, papillomavirus vaccines, knowledge about cervical cancer, genotype distribution of HPV and Ethiopia > . The main findings were described thematically.
Results
Cervical cancer is the second most common and the second most deadly cancer in Ethiopia, The incidence and prevalence of the disease is increasing from time to time because of the growth and aging of the population, as well as an increasing prevalence of well-established risk factors. Knowledge and awareness about cervical cancer is quite poor among Ethiopian women. According to a recent report (2021), the prevalence of previous screening practices among Ethiopian women was at 14%. Although HPV 16 is constantly reported as the common genotype identified from different grade cervical lesions in Ethiopia, studies reported different HPV genotype distributions across the country. According to a recent finding, the most common HPV types identified from cervical lesions in the country were HPV-16, HPV-52, HPV-35, HPV-18, and HPV-56. Ethiopia started vaccinating school girls using Gardasil-4™ in 2018 although the coverage is insignificant. Recently emerging reports are in favor of gender-neutral vaccination strategies with moderate coverage that was found superior and would rapidly eradicate high-risk HPVs than vaccinating only girls.
Conclusions
Cervical cancer continues to be a major public health problem affecting thousands of women in Ethiopia. As the disease is purely preventable, classic cervical cancer prevention strategies that include HPV vaccination using a broad genotype coverage, screening using a high precision test, and treating cervical precancerous lesions in the earliest possible time could prevent most cervical cancer cases in Ethiopia. The provision of a focused health education supported by educational materials would increase the knowledge of women about cervical cancer in general and the uptake of cervical cancer prevention and screening services in particular.
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Data availability
All the generated data are included in the manuscript.
Abbreviations
- CIN:
-
Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia
- HPV:
-
Human papillomavirus
- IARC:
-
International agency for research on cancer
- STD:
-
Sexually transmitted disease
- VIA:
-
Visual inspection of the cervix with acetic acid
- WHO:
-
World health organization
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Bahir Dar and Addis Ababa Universities and CDT-Africa for the provided opportunity to undertake this review.
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AD and TA conceived the review topic and objectives. AD, DM and EM participated in the study selection and write-up. EN, MM, YW and TA reviewed the manuscript critically for its scientific content. All authors reviewed and approved the manuscript.
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Derbie, A., Mekonnen, D., Nibret, E. et al. Cervical cancer in Ethiopia: a review of the literature. Cancer Causes Control 34, 1–11 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-022-01638-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10552-022-01638-y