Factors associated with low adherence to cervical cancer follow-up retest among HPV+/ cytology negative women: a study in programmatic context in a low-income population in Argentina

Cervical Cancer is still a major public health challenge in low and middle-income countries. HPV testing has been an innovative approach, which was introduced in Argentina for women aged 30+ through the Jujuy Demonstration Project (JDP) carried out between 2012 and 2014. After a positive HPV-test, cytology is used as triage method. Under this protocol, the group of women with HPV+ and normal cytology are recommended to repeat the test within 12-18 months. Studies have shown that this group has increased risk of CIN2+, however, assuring high levels of repeating test among these women is difficult to achieve. We analyze those factors associated with lower re-test attendance among HPV+/ cytology negative women at a programmatic level in low-middle income settings. We used data of women aged 30+ HPV-tested in the JDP and followed until 2018 (n = 49,565). We performed a set of different adjusted logistic regression models. Primary outcomes were re-test attendance and re-test attendance within recommended timeframe. We assessed as covariates age, health insurance status, year of HPV-testing, Pap testing in the past 3 years, HPV-testing modality (clinician-collected (CC) tests/self-collected (SC) tests), and span between HPV-test collection and report of results. Forty nine thousand five hundred sixty five women were HPV-tested and 6742 had a positive HPV-test. Among HPV+ women, a total of 4522 were HPV+/Cytology negative (67.1%). In total, 3172 HPV+/Cytology negative women (70.1%) had a record of a second HPV test as of March 2018. Only 1196 women (26%) completed the second test within the timeframe. Women with no record of a previous Pap (OR: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.4-0.53, p