A retrospective study of pap smear and cervical biopsy correlation in abnormal cervical cytology cases

Abstract

Cancer cervix is a global health problem and Pap smear is an important screening tool, which has proven to be highly effective in reducing the number of cases and the mortality from cervical carcinoma. Any abnormality detected in Pap smear has to be confirmed with cervical biopsy, which is the gold standard for diagnosing the lesions of the cervix. To study the prevalence of abnormal cervical cytology cases detected by Pap smear testing in our setting, to find the distribution of cytologically abnormal cases and also the concordance and discordance between Pap smear and cervix biopsy in cytologically abnormal cases to assess the sensitivity of Pap smear in detecting the intraepithelial lesions / malignancy of cervix. The study included all the abnormal cervical cytology cases and their cervix biopsies, for five years. The cytologically abnormal cases were listed and a thorough search was made for their cervix biopsy. The histopathological diagnosis of the corresponding cervix biopsies (if done) were also listed and compared for concordance. There were totally 12600 cases of Pap smear done during the study period and there were 146 cytologically abnormal cases. Histopathology reports of the cervix biopsy were available for 44 cases. Out of the 44 cases, 40 cases were concordant. The sensitivity of Pap smear test in our setting was found to be 90.9%. Our study revealed a good correlation between Pap smear and cervix biopsy.