Repercussões da pandemia de Sars-Cov-2 na realização do exame de Papanicolaou: um estudo epidemiológico

Objective: To analyze the repercussions of the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic on the number of collections of cervical cytopathological material in Brazil. Methods: Retrospective, cross-sectional study, from the DATASUS platform, the data collected correspond to the period between January 2019 to December 2020. The number of Pap smear collections per federation unit, relative percentages of states and sociodemographic regions of Brazil were analyzed. The impact of COVID-19 on the number of procedures performed by the Unified Health System in 2020 was measured statistically by comparison with the year 2019 using the non-parametric Wilcoxon Signed Rank test (α=0.01). Results: A 67% (p<0.001) drop was observed in the performance of the procedure nationwide. All macro-regions in Brazil were affected, with the southern region having the least impact, a decline of 38% (p<0.001). The other macro-regions showed declines of over 50% (p<0.001). There was no statistical correlation between cytopathology collections and the number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the states. Conclusion: The COVID-19 pandemic statistically reduced the number of actions related to Pap smears and possibly the identification of precursor or related cervical cancer lesions in 2020.