Title: The Comparative Evaluation of Liquid Based Cytology (LBC) and Conventional Pap Smear As a Screening Method of Cervical Cancer at Tertiary Care Center, Kota Rajasthan, India
Authors: Badri Lal Patidar, Suman Mendiratta, Neelam Meena, Shivraj Meena
DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18535/jmscr/v5i3.13
Abstract
Objective: The comparative evaluation of liquid based cytology (LBC) and conventional Pap smear as a screening method of cervical cancer.
Method: This was a hospital based prospective study, based on 58 women presenting with gynecological complaints. Pap smears were taken from all these patients with Ayre’s spatula and endocervical cytobrush and slides prepared. The residual material on both the spatula and cytobrush were rinsed in Pap spin collection fluid and centrifuged. Smears wre prepared from the cell button, fixed and stained by Papanicolaou stain. Colposcoplc guided cervical biopsy was taken from only dysplastic or suspected carcinomatous cases.
Result: Majority of patients belonged to fourth decade of life. Most common presenting complaint was persistent vaginal discharge or leucorrhoea present in 41(70%) cases. Low grade squamous intraepithelial lesions were found in 9(16%) cases on LBC as compared to 7(12%) cases on pap’s smear whereas 4(7%) cases had HSIL on LBC as compared to 2(3%) cases on conventional pap’s smear and 2 cases each had squamous cell carcinoma on LBC and pap smear. Senstitivity of Pap spin and conventional Pap smear was 87.5% and 62.5% respectively and specificity was 97.6% in each.
Conclusion: Liquid based cytology increases detection rate of low squamous Intraepithelial lesions (LSIL) and high squamous intraepithelial lesions (HSIL) than conventional pap smear and comparable to conventional pap smear in detecting squamous cell carcionoma. Therefore, the screening performance of liquid based cytology is superior to conventional cytology and this approach may be used alternative screening methods of cervical cancer.
Keywords: LBC, Pap smear, HSIL SCC.
