Comparison of Papnet-assisted and manual screening of cervical smears

We compared the performance of Papnet to manual screening with respect to detection of dysplastic/atypical epithelial cells, endocervical cells, and inflammatory changes/infectious agents. One thousand consecutive manually screened smears were retrieved from the cytological files and subjected to Papnet analysis. Five slides had to be excluded for technical reasons. Of the remaining 995 cases, manual and Papnet diagnosis showed agreement in 986 cases, 950 benign or within normal limits, and 36 with epithelial abnormalities. Papnet detected 4 cases missed by manual screening, but failed to detect 5 manually diagnosed cases. In 293/749 smears, existing endocervical cells were not selected by Papnet (40%) and inflammatory changes/infectious agents were diagnosed in 49 cases, compared to 87 cases by manual screening (56%). Papnet equaled manual screening for dysplasias and epithelial atypias, but its poor performance regarding endocervical cells and inflammation would be a drawback in primary screening. Diagn. Cytopathol. 1999;21:296-299.