Cervical intraepithelial lesions and cervical cancer among Asian Pacific Islander women in a cervical cancer screening program.

Utilizing data from a cervical cancer screening program in California, we examined the relationship between being a woman of Asian/Pacific Islander (API) origin and receiving different types of abnormal cervical diagnoses. Initial descriptive data reflected a higher than expected percentage of API subjects with a final diagnosis of in situ and invasive cervical cancer when compared with other subjects in other ethnic groups (N = 2792). Results of multivariate analysis indicated that being of API origin retained significance in a model explaining the level of severity of the cervical final diagnosis, even when controlling for other significant predictors such as having a prior pap smear, age, referral source, the presence of cervical abnormalities and the time from screening to diagnosis. We conclude that women of API origin may not be accessing health care sufficiently early to prevent increasingly severe final diagnoses. Utilizing data from a cervical cancer screening program in California, we examined the relationship between being a woman of Asian/Pacific Islander (API) origin and receiving different types of abnormal cervical diagnoses. Initial descriptive data reflected a higher than expected percentage of API subjects with a final diagnosis of in situ and invasive cervical cancer when compared with other subjects in other ethnic groups (N = 2792). Results of multivariate analysis indicated that being of API origin retained significance in a model explaining the level of severity of the cervical final diagnosis, even when controlling for other significant predictors such as having a prior pap smear, age, referral source, the presence of cervical abnormalities and the time from screening to diagnosis. We conclude that women of API origin may not be accessing health care sufficiently early to prevent increasingly severe final diagnoses.