Assessment of diagnostic aspiration curettage as an outpatient procedure.

Aspiration curettage proved acceptable to patients and medical staff when incorporated into a busy outpatient practice. The diagnostic reliability of curettings obtained was shown to be 93.5 per cent accurate. In all patients where mucus only is obtained, where symptoms persist or recur, or when aspiration curettage is too distressing, conventional curettage is mandatory.

PIP: An evaluative study of diagnostic aspiration curettage in an outpatient setting is presented. Curettage without analgesia was performed on 208 patients. 93.5% of the diagnoses were confirmed to be accurate. The majority of the diagnostic errors involved the inability to obtain adequate samples. Conventional curettage is mandatory when mucus only is obtained, when symptoms persist, or when aspiration curettage is too distressing. Patients who required diagnostic curettage preferred the aspiration curettage procedure. Aspiration curettage is considered a safe, acceptable procedure, and its use on an outpatient basis will expedite diagnosis.

Dilatation of the parous non-pregnant cervix.

In vitro cervical dilatations were carried out on 33 uteri removed by hysterectomy for conditions not involving the cervix from parous women in their reproductive span of life. A specially designed force measuring dilator was used for all the tests. The analysis of the results involved the application of a thick-walled cylindrical stress determination technique. Using this approach it was possible to calculate quasi-elastic moduli for different degrees of dilatation and obtain theoretical distributions of radial and circumferential stress across the cervical wall. These results indicated a yielding of the cervical tissue at about 9 to 11 mm. dilatation in a significant number of cases.