HEALTH ACTIONS ON EARLY DETECTION OF BREAST CANCER

Abstract

Conduct a bibliographic survey about the importance of the pap smear in women's health. This is an integrative review of the literature. It was based on data from Latin American and Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences (LILACS) and Nursing Database (BDENF) via the Virtual Health Library (VHL) which had as its main question: "What does the literature address about the importance of pap smear in women's health?". The following descriptors were used: "Health care", "Pap test" and "Women's health", as inclusion criteria were considered: full text, Portuguese language, Spanish and English, which portrayed the theme under study, published in the years 2012 to 2022, and as exclusion criteria: duplicate texts, incomplete and that did not focus on the theme exposed. The descriptors were crossed through the Boolean operator "AND" for simultaneous search of subjects. However, we must not lose sight of the term early detection that involves the first-instance identification of abnormalities in the breast. Thus, early detection programs are fundamental for reducing breast-related diseases. In view of the above, it is concluded that health actions for the early detection of breast cancer are very important in reducing the high mortality rates due to the disease.