Original Research Article
Year: 2016 | Month: June | Volume: 3 | Issue: 6 | Pages: 36-38
Pap Smear an Important Tool in Cervical Cancer Screening: A One Year Retrospective Study of 540 Patients
Sumit Giri1, Karandeep Singh2
1Professor, Dept. of Pathology, Saraswathi Institute of Medical Sciences, Hapur, U.P., India,2Professor, Dept. of Pathology, Maharaja Agrasen Medical College, Agroha, Hisar, Haryana, India.
Corresponding Author: Sumit Giri
ABSTRACT
Cancer of the cervix is a major burden on women’s health worldwide. In India this is the commonest cancer among women and this country has the largest burden of cervical cancer patients in the world. The retrospective study of total 540 patients in the age group of 15-70 years, having symptoms like vaginal discharge, bleeding per vagina. A detailed clinical history was obtained. Smears were taken using modified Ayres spatula. Slides were prepared, labeled, fixed in 95% ethyl alcohol immediately and thereafter stained by Papanicolaou stain. Reporting was done by cytopathologists according to The 2001 Bethesda system. Amongst the 540 pap smears that were studied 357 (66.26%) showed inflammatory lesion, 13 (2.47%) showed atrophic changes, 34 (6.29 %) showed Atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS), 2(0.3%) showed High grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL), 8(1.48 %) showed frank Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), 11 (2.0%) showed metaplasia, 2 (0.3%) had post radiation changes, 21 (3.88%) were unsatisfactory and 92 (17.13%) were within normal limits. We propose that larger studies are required to estimate the pattern of cervical cytological abnormalities along with detection of common (Human papilloma Virus) HPV strains in cervical cancer in Indian population, as this knowledge would be useful for prevention of HPV infection either by vaccines or future targeted therapy.
Key words: Pap smears, Bethesda system, cervical, atrophic, squamous.