Relation between naked eye Swede score and the outcomes of atypias of undetermined significance.

INTRODUCTION

Cervical cancer precursor lesions occur due to persistent infection caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). One of the challenges of the Pap test is detecting lesions at a high risk of evolving into cancer. In this context, differentiating patients at low and high risk of developing cervical cancer becomes necessary. The Swede score, a standardized point system assigned based on colposcopy, is the most commonly used method to evaluate suspicious lesions. However, access to colposcopy is limited in low-income countries. It is, therefore, important to assess the applicability of less costly diagnostic methods in these situations to avoid a late diagnosis of cervical cancer.

OBJECTIVE

To analyze histological outcomes of cytology tests with atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US and ASC-H) and to compare the performance of the Swede score with and without colposcopy.

METHODS

The study was approved by the Ethics Committee via Plataforma Brasil (CAAE no. 41958320.6.0000.5259) and conducted by applying colposcopy score and naked eye score to patients with cytology alterations (ASC-US and ASC-H), with posterior analysis of cytological and histological results and comparison between the scores.

RESULTS

A total of 34 women aged ranging from 24 to 65 years, with results of atypia with undetermined significance (ASC-US and ASC-H), were included in the study. The receiver operating characteristic curve was calculated for the naked eye inspection Swede score. The cut-off of 6 was considered to indicate the best sensitivity and specificity (55.56% and 93.75%, respectively). Then, the positive and negative predictive values were 90.91% and 65.22%, respectively. By increasing the cut-off to 7, specificity increased to 100%. For the colposcopic inspection, a cut-off of 6 indicates better specificity and positive predictive value (both 100%), whereas the negative predictive value was 57.14%.

CONCLUSION

The correlation between the colposcopic and naked-eye Swede scores was statistically significant (0.82). Further studies with larger samples are important to establish the actual applicability of the naked eye method; however, in the absence of colposcopy, this appears to be an effective and very helpful method to make diagnostic decisions regarding HPV-induced lesions.