A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE USE OF LIQUID BASED CYTOLOGY AND CONVENTIONAL PAP SMEAR IN CERVICAL SCREENING
Udeajah Victoria Ndidiamaka1 and Chinaka Chidinma Christiana2
1Department of Medical Laboratory, Ebonyi State University
2Federal Teaching Hospital Ebonyi State University Abakaliki Ebonyi State
E-mail:Vakadujah45@yahoo.com; dinmaceecee@yahoo.com
ABSTRACT
The high rate of cervical cancer in women and the inadequacy in its results during diagnosis has necessitated the comparison of the two major techniques used in its diagnosis which is the Liquid based technique and conventional Pap smear method. The aim of this thesis is to compare the accuracy of conventional cytology with liquid based cytology for primary screening of cervical cancers. The two cytological techniques were compared in a group of 300 women who visited Ebonyi State University Teaching Hospital for cervical screening. Outcome of the two screening methods was compared with regard to the determination of the specificity and sensitivity of both methods using histopathology as gold standard. Out of the 300 cases screened 38 and 30 cases were diagnosed as Low grade squamous intraepithelial lesion and High grade squamous intraepithelial lesion respectively by Liquid based cytology and about 32 and 24 cases were diagnosed as Low grade squamous intraepithelial lesion and High grade squamous intraepithelial lesion respectively on conventional cytology. 250 cases were satisfactory for evaluation using the LBC and 140 cases were found satisfactory on conventional cytology. Sensitivity and specificity of LBC was 100% and that of conventional cytology 86% and 97% respectively. From the result above it showed that LBC gives more accurate results. Though both methods have high sensitivity and specificity, LBC still has a higher sensitivity and specificity when compared to conventional Pap smear. On the other hand, the unit cost of LBC method is substantially more than that of conventional cytology.