Cervical cancer screening practices among general practitioners in Lagos Nigeria

Cervical cancer is the most common genital cancer in women in Nigeria. We studied the cervical cancer screening practices of 503 general practitioners in two urban and two rural areas of Lagos state. Only 60 (11.9%) ever informed their patients about cervical cancer screening and female doctors did this more often than their male counterparts (chi(2) = 4.74, p = 0.001). A total of 89 (17.8%) had facilities for Pap smears but only 27(5.4%) screened their patients. A total of 6 out of 27 (22.2%) did routine screening and 21 (77.8%) did selective screening. Only 6 out of 503 (1.2%) therefore did routine screening. Some 126 (25.0%) and 109 (21.7%) would do Pap smears for patients with post-coital bleeding and post- menopausal bleeding. Screening services were more available in the urban than in the rural areas (p = 0.0000). Thus, cervical cancer screening practices and services in Lagos are inadequate, which is no different from other parts of Nigeria and sub-Saharan Africa. Cervical cancer should be accorded the same attention as HIV, malaria, TB and childhood immunisations.