About invasive cervical cancer: a French population based study between 1998 and 2010

ObjectivesThe new French cancer plan provides the implementation of organized screening. To make an assessment of the situation, we aim to describe clinical, tumor and survival characteristics of patients with invasive cervical cancer.Study designData on women suffering from invasive cervical cancer and diagnosed from 1998 to 2010 were provided by the Cote d’Or breast cancer registry. Survival was described using the Kaplan–Meier method and prognostic factors of survival were estimated in a Cox proportional hazard model.ResultsOn the whole, 1019 cancers have been collected including 311 (30.5%) invasive ones. The peak incidence was between 40 and 49 years, with an average age of 52 years (SD = 16.4). Cancers were mostly squamous cell carcinoma (80.1%) and diagnosed at a localized stage (53.7%). Only 49% (71/145) of our population were up to date on their Pap smear follow up with lower rates in deprived women. The 5-year survival rate was 62% (15% for women with FIGO stage IV and 91% for women with FIGO stage I) with a median survival of 12.3 years [95% CI: 6.6–NR]. Multivariate analysis showed that risk of death was the highest for group age 50–59 (OR = 4.93; 95% CI: [1.55–15.70]) compared to women aged less than 40, advanced stage (OR = 3.12; 95% CI [1.82–5.35]), and non accurate follow up (OR = 2.81; 95% CI [1.32–5.97]). After cancer diagnosis, no impact of the deprivation index on survival was found.ConclusionThis study confirms the poor outcome of advanced invasive cervical cancer and the importance of early detection of cervical cancer. Preventive communication should be even more developed and the implementation of a screening program may go through the provision of improved screening tools.