PAP SMEAR, AN IMPORTANT SCREENING TOOL TO DETECT PRECANCEROUS STAGE OF CARCINOMA OF CERVIX
Abstract
Background: Many women can be saved from carcinoma of cervix by detecting and treating its precancerous stage. Pap smear is cheap and easily available in majority of institutes. The objective of this study is to determine the frequency of abnormal Pap smear and role of Pap smear in detecting precancerous stage of cancer cervix in women. Methods: This is retrospective descriptive study was conducted in gynaecology outpatient department of Isra University Hospital, Hyderabad, Sind from Nov 2006 to Oct 2009. All women who presented in OPD with gynaecological complaints were included in the study. Pregnant women were excluded from the study. Smear was collected with an Aryes spatula and relevant information was obtained from the patient’s record and recorded on pre-designed Performa. Slides were then sent to pathology department. Data were analysed through SPSS-15 and presented as frequency and percentage. Results: Total 981 women underwent Pap smear screening. Majority (63.3%) of the patients belonged to age group of 31–40 years. One hundred and eighty (18.34%) smears were normal and 792 (80.7%) were abnormal. Among these abnormal smears, 739 (75.33%) smears were inflammatory while 4 (0.40%) women had Ca in situ and 4 (0.40%) had squamous cell carcinoma. Conclusion. Pap smear is an important screening tool to detect precancerous stage of carcinoma of cervix. It should be done periodically in all married and high risk women for early detection of a precancerous stage.Keywords: Pap smear, inflammatory, cancer cervix, malignancy, gynaecological tumour, diagnosisReferences
Elkas J, Faries-Einser R. Cancer of the uterine cervix. Curr Opin Obstet Gynaecol 1998;10:47–50.
Bhurgri Y, Bhurgri A, Rahim A, Bhutto K, Pinjani PK, Usman A, et al.The pattern of malignancies in Karachi (1995–96). J Pak Med Assoc 1999;49:157–61.
Bhurgri Y, Bhurguri A, Hassan SH. Comparability and quality control in cancer registration; Karachi cancer registry data. J Pak Med Assoc 2002;52:301–7.
Shingleton HM, Patrick RL, Johnston WW, Smith RA. The current status of the papanicolaou smear. CA Cancer J Clin 1995;45:305–20.
White LN. An overview of screening and early detection of gynaecological malignancies. Cancer 1993;71:1400–5.
Stjernsward J, Eddy D, Luthra U, Stanely K. Cervical cancer screening in developing countries. National Health 1995;11(2):42–4.
Saslow D, Runowicz CD, Solomon D, Moscicki AB, Smith RA, Eyre HJ, et al. American Cancer Society Guideline for the early detection of cervical neoplasia and cancer: CA Cancer J Clin 2002;52;342–62.
Sawaya GF, Brown AD, Washington AE, Garber AM. Clinical practice: current approaches to cervical cancer screening. N Engl J Med 2001;344:1603–7.
Nausheen A, Karim SA. The screening for cervical cancer by Pap smear in hospital based population. Ann Abbasi Shaheed Hosp Karachi Med Dent Coll 2004;9:544–7.
Khan MS, Raja FY, Ishfaq G, Tahir F, Subhan F, Birjees MK et al. Pap smear screening for precancerous conditions of the cervical cancer. Pak J Med Res 2005;44:111–3.
Ahmed N, Mehboob R. Cervical intraepithelial neoplasia recent trends in diagnosis and management. Pak J Med Rse 2002;41:43–5.
Mahoney MC, Saslow D, Cohen CJ. American Cancer Society (ACS) Guidelines for early detection of cancer. Recommendations on cervical cancer screening. AM Fam Physic 2003;67:1677–8.
Khattak ST, Khattak ID, Naheed T, Akhtar S, Jamal T. Detection of abnormal cervical cytology by pap smears. Gomal J Med Scie 2006;4:74–77.
Ayre JE. Selective cytology smears for the diagnosis of cancer. Am J Obstet Gynaecol 1947;53:609–17.
Sohail R, Nazir R, Latif Y, Zaman F. Evaluation of cervical smear in women attending gynecological OPD. J Surg Pak 2008;13(3):121–3.
Beardow R, Oerton J, Victor C. Evaluation of cervical cytology screening programme in an intercity health District. Brit Med J 1988;299:98–100.
Rowen D, Carne CA, Sonnex, C, Cooper P. Increased incidence of cervical cytological abnormality in women with genital wart: A need for increased vigilance. J Urin Med 1991;67:460–3.
Published
Issue
Section
License
Journal of Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad is an OPEN ACCESS JOURNAL which means that all content is FREELY available without charge to all users whether registered with the journal or not. The work published by J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad is licensed and distributed under the creative commons License CC BY ND Attribution-NoDerivs. Material printed in this journal is OPEN to access, and are FREE for use in academic and research work with proper citation. J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad accepts only original material for publication with the understanding that except for abstracts, no part of the data has been published or will be submitted for publication elsewhere before appearing in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. The Editorial Board of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad makes every effort to ensure the accuracy and authenticity of material printed in J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad. However, conclusions and statements expressed are views of the authors and do not reflect the opinion/policy of J Ayub Med Coll Abbottabad or the Editorial Board.
USERS are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author. This is in accordance with the BOAI definition of open access.
AUTHORS retain the rights of free downloading/unlimited e-print of full text and sharing/disseminating the article without any restriction, by any means including twitter, scholarly collaboration networks such as ResearchGate, Academia.eu, and social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Scholar and any other professional or academic networking site.
