Liquid Based Cytology To Replace Conventional Cervical Cytology: In Sensitivity, Specificity And Positive Predictive Significance

Cervical cancer can be preventable by regular screening. Screening identifies the precancerous lesions, which helps in prevention and further progression to cancer. Despite the limited accuracy of the Conventional Pap, liquid based cytology (LBC) has been introduced in the NHS Cervical screening programme (NHSCSP) UK. National institute of clinical excellence (NICE) recommended a pilot study to evaluate the accuracy of LBC in 2003 and the pilot report showed that LBC reduces the inadequate rates of samples. However, there were insufficient evidence to justify the sensitivity and specificity of LBC. Many studies compared the accuracy between LBC and the Conventional method; some studies showed that LBC is sensitive in detecting CIN2 or worse lesions and some study found no difference between the two methods. This study looked at the reporting profile of cytology in England over the past 10 year period for comparing the two methods. LBC has been introduced in the NHSCSP in the year 2003/04 and the complete rollout of LBC was done in 2008. The information for this study has been collected from the NHCSP website and the analysis has been done using the Microsoft Excel.