Barriers to adoption of recent technology in cervical screening

A Comparison of 3 Ways of Conventional Pap Smear, Liquid-Based Cytology and Colposcopy vs Cervical Biopsy for Early Diagnosis of Premalignant Lesions or Cervical Cancer in Women with Abnormal Conventional Pap Test

The most cost effective method of prevention and detection of cervical cancer is the Pap smear. In abnormal Pap smear, colposcopy, endocervical curettage and biopsy will be done. Gold standard method in detecting cervical lesion is biopsy. Now in two ways conventional Pap smear and liquid base are routine diagnostic technique in Iran and given easily and cost-effectiveness of this method in the detection of cervical lesions to determine the sensitivity the objective of this study was compare three methods of Pap smear and colposcopy in detection of any lesion to gold standard biopsy in the positive ASC cases who referred to gynecologic Oncology Clinic of shahid Sadoughi University of Medical Science. This study is a descriptive analytic in 2009-2010 years on 150 cases of patients with Atypical Squamose Cell (ASC) results in previous pap smear ,conventional pap smear, liquid based pap smear, colposcopy and cervical biopsy had been done for all patient and finally data were analyzed with chi-square statistical test on spss ver 16 saftware. Average age of patients in this study was, 42 ± 9.9 year and reason for referring patients in 35.4% of cases was due to follow-up of abnormal results of previous Pap smear, in 30% bleeding, 12% Pain and 2.6% percent of cases was checking-up. In final results of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), negative predictive value (NPV) and accuracy any of the methods conventional and liquid based Pap smear and colposcopy were compared with cervical biopsy as a gold standard. The conventional Pap smear method had a sensitivity 51%, specificity 66.6%, PPV 96%, NPV was 8% and accuracy was 92%, about the liquid base Pap smear method, sensitivity was 55.3%, specificity was 77.7%, PPV was 97.5%, NPV was 10% and accuracy was 56/6%. About the colposcopy, sensitivity was70/9 % specificity 44/4%, PPV was 95.2%, NPV was 8/8% and accuracy was 69.3%. The relationship between sensitivity results of conventional Pap smear and colposcopy, with p<0.001 and between the results of sensitivity of liquid based cytology and colposcopy with p<0.01 relationship was significant. Colposcopy has the best efficacy in detecting any cervical lesion in compared with any other diagnostic technique. so that further studies with more detailed plans and bigger sample sizes are suggested for obtaining reliable result.

Primary care provider practices and beliefs related to cervical cancer screening with the HPV test in Federally Qualified Health Centers

OBJECTIVE

Cervical cancer screening using the human papillomavirus (HPV) test and Pap test together (co-testing) is an option for average-risk women ≥ 30 years of age. With normal co-test results, screening intervals can be extended. The study objective is to assess primary care provider practices, beliefs, facilitators and barriers to using the co-test and extending screening intervals among low-income women.

METHOD

Data were collected from 98 providers in 15 Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) clinics in Illinois between August 2009 and March 2010 using a cross-sectional survey.

RESULTS

39% of providers reported using the co-test, and 25% would recommend a three-year screening interval for women with normal co-test results. Providers perceived greater encouragement for co-testing than for extending screening intervals with a normal co-test result. Barriers to extending screening intervals included concerns about patients not returning annually for other screening tests (77%), patient concerns about missing cancer (62%), and liability (52%).

CONCLUSION

Among FQHC providers in Illinois, few administered the co-test for screening and recommended appropriate intervals, possibly due to concerns over loss to follow-up and liability. Education regarding harms of too-frequent screening and false positives may be necessary to balance barriers to extending screening intervals.

Debris removal in Pap-smear images

Since its introduction in the 1940s the Pap-smear test has helped reduce the incidence of cervical cancer dramatically in countries where regular screening is standard. The automation of this procedure is an open problem that has been ongoing for over fifty years without reaching satisfactory results. Existing systems are discouragingly expensive and yet they are only able to make a correct distinction between normal and abnormal samples in a fraction of cases. Therefore, they are limited to acting as support for the cytotechnicians as they perform their manual screening. The main reason for the current limitations is that the automated systems struggle to overcome the complexity of the cell structures. Samples are covered in artefacts such as blood cells, overlapping and folded cells, and bacteria, that hamper the segmentation processes and generate large number of suspicious objects. The classifiers designed to differentiate between normal cells and pre-cancerous cells produce unpredictable results when classifying artefacts. In this paper, we propose a sequential classification scheme focused on removing unwanted objects, debris, from an initial segmentation result, intended to be run before the actual normal/abnormal classifier. The method has been evaluated using three separate datasets obtained from cervical samples prepared using both the standard Pap-smear approach as well as the more recent liquid based cytology sample preparation technique. We show success in removing more than 99% of the debris without loosing more than around one percent of the epithelial cells detected by the segmentation process.

Innovation in cervical cancer prevention and control in Mexico

Disparities related to cervical cancer continue to exist in Mexico, including insufficient screening coverage, problems with quality control and a resulting greater risk of mortality among women from marginalized areas. A lack of opportunities and requirements for continuing education and accreditation of healthcare personnel involved in the screening program is also an issue. HPV DNA testing and HPV vaccines are recent technological innovations that offer a potential solution to the continued negative impact of cervical cancer among Mexican women. This essay attempts to answer questions such as: Why should HPV testing be integrated into the early detection program in Mexico? How can HPV testing best be integrated into the program in Mexico? How-from a public health perspective that seeks to reduce disparities-can HPV vaccination best be implemented in Mexico? HPV testing allows increased positive predictive value while also reducing costly and unnecessary overtreatment of low-grade abnormalities, and HPV vaccines offer the possibility of primary prevention of cervical cancer. The strategy proposed for Mexico includes primary prevention with HPV vaccination for girls aged between 12 and 16 years (before sexual initiation), Pap testing with excellent quality control for women 24-34 years of age and high-risk HPV DNA testing for women 35 years and older. HPV samples would be either clinically collected or self-collected and women with positive HPV test results would receive follow-up high-quality Pap testing. This approach is creative and focuses on reducing disparities and providing high-quality care that is also cost effective.