Liquid based cytology and HPV DNA testing in a Greek population compared to colposcopy and histology.

Screening for cervical cancer in Greece is still unorganised and based on self- motivation. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of cytological findings from a large observational population sample, originating from Western Athens, in association with reflex DNA test, colposcopic estimation, and final histologic diagnosis. The rate of invasive carcinoma, both squamous cell and adenocarcinoma, is indicative of a largely unscreened population. In this study, the estimated overall prevalence of human papilloma virus (HPV) was 41.1%, with HPV positivity at 37.4% of cytologically normal women. HPV testing did not seem to improve sensitivity of cytology for atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US) and low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LGSIL) cases in identifying CIN 2+ lesions, but outperformed cytology in detecting CIN3+ for cytological high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HGSIL) cases. For HGSIL cases sensitivity of colposcopy for detecting CIN3+ was comparable to cytology.

The role of liquid-based cytology in the investigation of thyroid lesions.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates the role of liquid-based cytology by ThinPrep technique in the detection of thyroid lesions. METHODS: In all, 252 specimens from 157 patients for pre-operative evaluation of thyroid nodules, prepared by the ThinPrep, were examined. In all cases thyroidectomy followed the initial cytological evaluation. All cytological diagnoses were correlated to the histological ones. RESULTS: According to our findings, a sensitivity of 87.80%, a specificity of 99.50%, a positive predictive value of 97.30%, a negative predictive value of 97.56% and an overall accuracy of 97.52% were observed in fine needle aspiration cytology in correlation to the histological diagnosis after thyroidectomy. CONCLUSIONS: ThinPrep technique is a valid method for the pre-operative cytological diagnosis of thyroid nodules, offering the possibility of ancillary techniques, such as immunocytochemical and molecular methods and can, therefore, be potentially complementary to histological evaluation for further investigation of follicular lesions.