Comparison of Pap Smear Quality With Anatomical Spatula Method and the Common Method (SpatulaCytobrush): A Single Blind Clinical Trial

Background: Cervical cancer is the third most common cancer in women in the world. Papanicolaou smear is known as a standard test for cervical cancer screening; however, the most important challenge is high rates of false negative results. The aim of this study was to compare the quality of smears obtained by anatomical spatula and spatula-cytobrush. The most important factor in false negative result is inappropriate tool of sampling.

Methods: One hundred married women participated in this single blind clinical trial. All participants were interviewed; two samples were obtained from every participant: one with spatula-cytobrush and another one with anatomical spatula. All slides were encoded and were assessed by two pathologists. Then, data were analyzed by means of kappa coefficient.

Results: Cell adequacy was 96.1 % in anatomical spatula method and 91.2 % in spatula-cytobrush method (p= 0.016). The rates for endocervical cells and metaplasia cells in anatomical spatula method were 70.6% and 24.5% respectively and these amounts were 69.6% and 24.5% respectively in the spatula-cytobrush method (p 0.05). Regarding infection and inflammatory reactions there was no statistically significant difference between two methods (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Based on our findings in this study, results of sampling with anatomical spatula method were more acceptable and better than those with spatulacytobrush sampling.