Comparison of Efficacy in Abnormal Cervical Cell Detection between Liquid-based Cytology and Conventional Cytology

Abstract

This study was conducted to 1206 women who had cervical cancer screening at Chonburi Cancer Hospital.The spilt-sample study aimed to compare the efficacy of abnormal cervical cells detection between liquid-basedcytology (LBC) and conventional cytology (CC). The collection of cervical cells was performed by broom anddirectly smeared on a glass slide for CC then the rest of specimen was prepared for LBC. All slides were evaluatedand classified by The Bethesda System. The results of the two cytological tests were compared to the gold standard.The LBC smear significantly decreased inflammatory cell and thick smear on slides. These two techniques werenot difference in detection rate of abnormal cytology and had high cytological diagnostic agreement of 95.7%. Thehistologic diagnosis of cervical tissue was used as the gold standard in 103 cases. Sensitivity, specificity, positivepredictive value, negative predictive value, false positive, false negative and accuracy of LBC at ASC-US cut offwere 81.4, 75.0, 70.0, 84.9, 25.0, 18.6 and 77.7%, respectively. CC had higher false positive and false negativethan LBC. LBC had shown higher sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV and accuracy than CC but no statisticalsignificance. In conclusion, LBC method can improve specimen quality, more sensitive, specific and accurate atASC-US cut off and as effective as CC in detecting cervical epithelial cell abnormalities.