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Commercial laboratory practice evaluation of air‐dried/rehydrated cervicovaginal smears vs. traditionally‐fixed smears
Author(s) -
Randall Brad,
van Amerongen LeAnn
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
diagnostic cytopathology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1097-0339
pISSN - 8755-1039
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-0339(199702)16:2<174::aid-dc16>3.0.co;2-j
Subject(s) - pap smears , medicine , cytology , abnormality , biopsy , pathology , cervical cancer , cancer , psychiatry
Abstract Air‐drying artifacts remain a significant problem in the interpretation of cervicovaginal cytologic smears. One historical, and little‐used, method to combat these artifacts is to have smears submitted solely air‐dried, subsequently rehydrated, fixed, and then stained as usual. Reported here is a 1992–1993 retrospective matched provider study of 6,788 air‐dried/rehydrated smears and 1,691 traditionally‐fixed smears. No significant differences either in the percentage of abnormalities (8.6% vs. 8.2%) or the degree of abnormality (class II, 6.9%/6.9%; class III, 1.7%/1.3%; class IV, .01%/.06%; and class V, .01%/0%) were seen between the two techniques. Cytology‐biopsy correlation remained in the 98–99% range for three large providers switching from air‐dried to traditionally‐fixed smears. These findings strengthen our belief that the air‐dried/rehydrated technique is a viable alternative to combat the usual “air‐dried” artifact problem. Diagn. Cytopathol. 16:174–176, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.