Comparative Analysis of Quality of Cell Collected from the Cervix: Conventional versus Liquid-Based Cytology.

OBJECTIVES

To compare the qualitative and quantitative differences in several cell types between conventional cytology and liquid-based cytology samples in patients diagnosed with high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia.

METHODS

A prospective, observational, cross-sectional study was conducted with 84 female patients at Santa Casa de Misericórdia de São Paulo Hospital (São Paulo, Brazil) between May 2019 and November 2020. Patients who underwent colposcopy-guided biopsy and were subsequently diagnosed with high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia were included in this study. After the patients' selection, relevant information, conventional cytology, and liquid-based cytology samples were collected in the same session.

RESULTS

Liquid-based cytology presented less neutrophilic infiltrate and a clean background, when compared to conventional cytology. We observed a larger amount of cell types (mature, basal, metaplastic, endocervical cells) in conventional cytology when compared to liquid-based cytology, with statistically significant results in all four cell types. We also observed a concordance rate of 90.6% in the cytological diagnosis between conventional and liquid-based cytologies.

CONCLUSION

Even though we found a greater amount of cells in conventional cytology, the diagnostic accuracy of both cytologies is similar. Therefore, in places in where conventional cytology is employed as the main screening method, a proper diagnosis is achieved.