Florence, February 21, 2024
An Indian study found that cervical cancer is one of the most common forms of genital neoplasia among Indian women. Relapses occur in a significant number of cases. The conventional cervical smear technique, which is used to perform Pap smears, has inherent problems, screening errors, and interpretation errors.
This study was undertaken to evaluate The effectiveness of liquid phase cytology (LBC) as a method for cytological follow-up and detection of recurrence in treated cervical cancer cases and to compare it with the conventional Pap Test technique to find the best screening method for detection of recurrence in these patients.
In this cross-sectional study, samples of patients attending Gynecology and Radiation Therapy outpatient clinics for follow-up after cervical cancer treatment were compared. For each patient, Pap smear and LBC tests were performed. Colposcopy and biopsy were performed for those with epithelial cell abnormalities in the cytology report. Colposcopy and biopsy have been considered the gold standard for the diagnosis of cervical cancer recurrence. Ninety-four patients treated for cervical cancer were studied. The diagnostic accuracy for detection of recurrence of conventional Pap test was 79.16%, while that of LBC was 97.6%. The difference between the two methods was significant (P<0.001).
The results showed that liquid phase cytology is more effective than conventional cytology method in detecting squamous cell carcinoma recurrence. The sensitivity, specificity and accuracy were much higher than the conventional method.
- Authors: Uma Singh, Anjum, Sabuhi Qureshi, Neha Negi, Nisha Singh, Madhumati Goel, and Kirti Srivastava.
- Institute: Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, India; Department of Pathology, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, India; Department of Radiotherapy, King George’s Medical University, Lucknow, India.
LBC may be a better method for cytologic follow-up of patients post-treated for cervical cancer, especially that of Hospitex which is based on the optimal concentration of cells, obtained with the Nephelometric Smart Technology.
To read the full study, please refer to the Scientific Article here.
