The correlation between colposcopy, cervical cytology and histopathology in the diagnosis and management of cervical lesions: a cross sectional study

ABSTRACT

Background: The study was undertaken to see the correlation between cervical cytology, histopathology and colposcopy in the diagnosis and management of various cervical lesions.Methods: It is a cross sectional study conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Mumbai, in the department of obstetrics and gynecology from February 2007 to March 2008. A total 55 sexually active women were enrolled for the study who belonged to age group greater than 20 years with history of chronic leucorrhoea or post-coital bleeding/spotting, intermenstrual bleeding/spotting or examination findings of erosion, an unhealthy cervix, a lesion bleeding on touch or an abnormal or suspicious Papanicolaou smear. These women then underwent cytology, colposcopy and cervical biopsy.Results: The accuracy of cytology when compared to colposcopy was 81.82%. The accuracy of colpo-histopathology was 83.6%. The combined accuracy was 76.36%.Conclusions: The simultaneous use of cytological studies and screening colposcopy has been shown to increase the cervical cancer detection. Colposcopy offers an excellent tool in the hands of a gynaecologist to evaluate the uterine cervix and it is not possible to develop this kind of perspective by any other method.