Cytopathological study of cervical smear: a hospital based retrospective study

ABSTRACT

The present study aimed to analyze the Pap smear for cytopathological evaluation in a hospital based community at National Institute of Unani Medicine [NIUM], Bangalore. A retrospective study was conducted at pathology laboratory, NIUM from June 2010 and June 2012. A total of 700 married women were included aged 18-70 years with abnormal vaginal discharge and who had come for cervical cancer screening. The Pap smears were obtained by using conventional technique and were evaluated using The Bethesda system 2001. The data was analyzed statistically. The overall Pap smears analysis showed 18.2%, 1.2%, 67.1% and 1.8% of normal, inadequate, inflammatory and low grade squamous intraepithelial lesions [LSIL] respectively. Of 67.1% of inflammatory smear, 8.2%, 35.7% and 23.1% were mild, moderate and severe inflammatory smear respectively. The inflammatory smears in Muslims and Hindus were found in 68% and 64% respectively. The low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion was observed in 1.4% and 3% among Muslims and Non-Muslims respectively. The mean age was 34.69 +/- 9.15 years and most of the women were in reproductive age group. In this study, the epithelial cell abnormality [LSIL] was found to be low in Muslims than Non-Muslims in Cytopathological evaluation of cervical smear. Hence, this study proves that in Muslim community the prevalence of cervical dysplasia is less. It is also recommended that reporting should be done by using The Bethesda System, as it improves the reproducibility and plays a key role in diagnosis of various intraepithelial lesions at an early stage.