Reliability of reporting the presence of transformation zone material in Papanicolaou smears using an automated screening system.
OBJECTIVE
This study was conducted to evaluate the reliability of using an interactive automated screening system (IAS) to determine the presence of endocervical and/or metaplastic cells (transformation zone material; TZM) in liquid-based cytology (LBC) Papanicolaou (Pap) smear slides.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
A series of LBC Pap smears was manually screened to determine the presence or absence of TZM. The results were compared to those obtained through IAS.


RESULTS
ThinPrep® Imaging System (Imager)-assisted screening indicated that 22.4% of the slides did not contain TZM in cases in which previous manual screening revealed that 100% of the slides did contain TZM.


CONCLUSION
The reliability of determining TZM through IAS is limited. Manual screening of the slides appears to be necessary to report the presence of TZM accurately.
['Erbarut Seven|I|I|', 'Mollamemisoglu|H|H|', 'Eren|F|F|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D001331:Automation D002584:Cervix Uteri D005260:Female D006801:Humans D008403:Mass Screening D008875:Middle Aged D065006:Papanicolaou Test D015203:Reproducibility of Results D058028:Research Report D055815:Young Adult
transformation zone material Papanicolaou smear automated screening system Pap smear endocervical cells liquid based