Florence, November 24, 2023
A recent study proposes a comparison between the conventional smear cytology method and the liquid phase cytology method in order to evaluate inadequate preparations due to hypocellularity or artifacts such as the presence of blood and/or other factors.
The slides being compared are from cervico-vaginal specimens taken from women eligible for screening with primary HPV testing between 2017 and 2022. Primary HPV testing, if positive, involves reading triage cytology to identify any cellular abnormalities.
Retrospective results from the periods 2017 to 2019 and 2020 to 2022 with conventional cytology and liquid cytology, respectively, are compared. The results show that the percentage of “inadequates” recorded between 2017 to 2019 is 6.47 percent compared to the period from 2020 to 2022, which records a value of 0.93 percent.
The findings of the study suggest that the use of liquid cytology significantly reduced the values in the diagnostic class of inadequate compared with conventional cytology. This indicates an improvement in the quality of the samples collected and an improvement in the effectiveness of the screening system.
