Evaluation of the cerviscope as a screening instrument.

The cerviscope has been proposed as a screening tool for use in conjunction with the Papanicolaou smear as a system offering many of the same advantages as colposcopy and cytology. One hundred twenty-five patients were evaluated with the cerviscope who had been referred to this colposcopy clinic with a diagnosis of dysplasia. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the instrument's potential as a screening adjunct in the context of simultaneous evaluation by colposcopy. Thirty-nine percent (49 patients) were unevaluable due to technical problems (defective cervicogram, nonvisualized squamocolumnar junction). Significantly, 67% (26 patients) of the 39 patients reported as having negative cervicograms had a biopsy-proven dysplasia (19 mild, 4 moderate, 3 severe). By the chi 2 method, this is statistically significant (P less than 0.001).