Cervical Cytologic Smears in Pap Solution vs ThinPrep: Smear Characteristics and Diagnostic Agreement

BACKGROUND: The Pap smear has brought about a dramatic improvement in the prevention of cervical cancer in women worldwide. In an effort to decrease the occasional false negatives in the Pap smear and further increase the screened population, ThinPrep Pap Test (TP), a fluid-based cytology collection method, has been developed. With preservation of claimed advantages of TP, we have developed a Pap test solution for manual preparatory process and compared our manually processed fluid-based Pap smear with TP to identify cytologic similarities and differences between the two methods. METHODS: Cervical swipes of 204 patients were prospectively collected in the 'Pap solution' and also in PreservCyt solution for TP. Diagnoses and smear characteristics were compared. RESULTS: The diagnoses of the paired smears agreed in 190 of the 204 cases (93.1%). The smear characteristics regarding overall cellularity and background cellularities were similar in the two methods and the stainability of the cells was virtually the same. CONCLUSIONS: The 'Pap solution' has similar performance characteristics as TP in many aspects. With its advantages of cost-effectiveness and easier preparatory process, the 'Pap solution' can match previously implemented thin layer preparation.

A Study of Pure Aortic Valvular Stenosis in Adult

BACKGROUND: There has been a change in the causes of aortic stenosis when comparence of rheumatioc aortic stenosis in recent year. Therefore, we studied the etiology factor of pure aortic stenosis. METHODS: The gross surgical pathologic features of the aortic valves were reviewed in 92 patients with pure aotic stenosis whom underwent aortic valve replacement at Yonsei University, Cardiovascular center between July 1989 and June 1994. RESULTS: The three most frequent causes were 1) calcification of congenital bicuspid valve in 30%, 2) degenerative calcification of aortic valve in 22%, 3) rheumatioc valvular change in 48%. The mean age at the time of aortic valve replacement for the entire series of patients was 54.4 years. The range of age was from 18 years to 77 years. Males predominated for degenerative disease and congenital bicuspid valves, but there were reversed rheumatic origin. One or more complications occured in 17% of patients undergoing operation. The surgical mortality was 3.3%. CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that more common cause of aortic stenosis is non-rheumatic disease rather than rheumatinc origin.