The Positive Predictive Value of High-Grade Squamous Intraepithelial Lesion on Cytology for the Histological Diagnosis of Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia 2 or Higher: A Systematic Review.

Cervical cancer is a major worldwide health problem. Therefore, regular cervical screening in order to make an early diagnosis can help to prevent cervical cancer, through identifying and treating preinvasive cervical lesions. The aim of this review is to evaluate the correlation between the cytological screening result and the final gold standard histological outcome in the diagnosis of cervical lesions. More specifically, the correlation between high-grade intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) on cytology and histological cervical intraepithelial neoplasia grade 2 or higher (CIN2+) was intended, by calculating the positive predictive value (PPV). PPV is an important value from a clinical point of view. An electronic search was carried out in the electronic databases MEDLINE (through PubMed) and the Cochrane Library (last searched beginning of December 2017), supplemented with the related article feature in PubMed and snowballing. Article selection (predefined inclusion and exclusion criteria) and data extraction were evaluated by two independent reviewers (N.K. and A.V.L.). After identifying 1,146 articles, 27 articles were finally included in this systematic review, representing 28,783 cytological HSIL diagnoses in total. The PPV of HSIL was 77.5% (range: 45.4-95.2%) for the histological diagnosis of CIN2+ and 55.4% (range: 36.4-67.6%) for the diagnosis of CIN3+. In this systematic review, 77.5% of the HSIL-positive women eventually had a CIN2+ diagnosis. The diagnostic value of a cytological HSIL result (conventional or liquid-based cytology) in the diagnosis of CIN2+ lesions is good, but a combination of tests could raise this value.