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Reduced alcohol use in the staining of Pap smears: a satisfactory low-cost protocol for cervical cancer screening
Titilola O Akinremi1, Saloney Nazeer, Martin Tötsch
1Department of Pathology, Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Nigeria. bakinremi@aol.com
Objective:
To describe a low-cost Papanicolaou staining procedure that can be applied to conventional and monolayer gynecologic preparations.
Study Design:
The amount of alcohol consumed in the procedure, which normally accounts for > 80% of the cost of processing, was reduced drastically by (1) using only 1 modified cytoplasmic counterstain (EA type), thereby (2) reducing the number of alcohol rinses by over half Orange-G dye is omitted.
Results:
The resultant effect of the modified staining protocol is quite satisfactory and attractive to screening eyes: nuclear details are sharp and crisp, while the cytoplasm contains transparent differential staining with blue-green and pink.
Conclusion:
A reduction in the cost of staining should encourage cervical cancer screening, especially in developing countries, where cost is a limiting factor, thus making it possible for more women to be screened without increasing the cost of the program.
