CLINICAL, CYTOLOGICAL AND HISTOPATHOLOGICAL CORRELATION IN LESIONS OF UTERINE CERVIX

BACKGROUNDCytological screening of the uterine cervix by Papanicolaou test has reduced the incidence of cervical cancer.But cytological diagnosis in clinically suspicious lesions of cervix is provisional and has to be corroborated with histopathological findings for effective treatment response. MATERIALS AND METHODS Study Design-A descriptive study.Three hundred patients attending Gynaecological Oncology OPD of A.H. Regional Cancer Centre, Cuttack during the period April 2016-March 2017, were studied.History taking, clinical examination was followed by cervical smear and multiple punch biopsies, in patients with unhealthy cervix.The cytological and histopathological results were correlated with each other and clinically. RESULTSClinically, cancer was detected in 77.6% cases.Cytologically, 73.3% reported carcinoma and 3.33% squamous intraepithelial lesions.Histopathologically, 74.6% showed carcinoma and 3.7% SIL.The cytohistopathological agreement was 69.2% in inflammatory lesions and 90.5% in invasive carcinomas.In clinically unhealthy cervix, a report of squamous intraepithelial-lesion by cytology was seen in 17.02% and by histopathology was found in 19.15%.Cytological proof of cancer was obtained in 73.3% of cases and histopathological proof in 74%.On overall analysis of 300 cases of suspicious cervix, 229 correlated well with cytology, labelling them as abnormal and 246 cases were stamped as diseased by histopathology. CONCLUSIONThis study proves that cytology can be used as a very effective screening tool to catch high risk cases, which can be biopsied to detect cancer early.Both cytology and histopathology correlate well with clinically obvious lesions of the cervix.