One year retrospective analysis of PAP smears-from a tertiary hospital in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Introduction: Cervical cancer is one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in India and worldwide, it usually takes 3–7 years for high-grade changes in cervical cells to become cancer. There are many effective screening tests for cervical cancer. PAP smear is one such test Aim: To analyse the pap smears done in our hospital for a period of one year Objectives: 1). To determine the percentage of abnormal smears detected 2). To analyse the myriad of findings in a PAP smear. Materials and methods: It is a Retrospective Observational study, Data was collected from the PAP smears taken in the Gynaecology department outpatients and master health check-up of our hospital. Data was collected for a period of one year from January 2017 to December 2017. Results: Around 2333 PAP smears were analyzed over a period of one year, of it 885 was from our OPD and 1448 was from the master health check-up, the detection of precancerous lesion was 1.2%, in addition to detecting pre-cancerous lesions, additional information showed a variety of infections like a Candida, Trichomonas, Actinomyces, etc. Conclusion: Cytology based screening is one of the most cost effective and easy method of cervical cancer screening.