Performance of the CellSolutions Glucyte liquid-based cytology in comparison with the ThinPrep and SurePath methods

Glucyte liquid-based cytology (LBC; BestPrep™;CellSolutions, LLC, Greensboro, N.C., USA) is a recently developed method. Its performance was assessed in comparison with ThinPrep (Hologic Inc., Marlborough, Mass., USA) and SurePath (BD Diagnostics, Burlington, N.C., USA) LBC platforms.

Two cervical samples obtained from each of 331 patients presenting for colposcopy were utilized. The first sample was placed in PreservCyt (Hologic) and the second in SurePath medium, and both were processed in accordance with the manufacturers' protocols. From the residual SurePath sample, a Glucyte slide was prepared, stained, and read as per the manufacturer's instructions.

Considering a threshold cytologic diagnosis of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance and using a histologic diagnosis of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia or worse (CIN 2+) as the end point, there was no significant difference in the sensitivity of Glucyte for the detection of CIN 2+ compared with ThinPrep and SurePath (86.9 vs. 81.9% and 83.7%, respectively). However, Glucyte showed a specificity of 49.2% compared with 61.6% for ThinPrep (p = 0.002) and 66.9% for SurePath (p < 0.001). Considering a threshold cytologic diagnosis of high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion, Glucyte showed a sensitivity of 40.5% for detecting CIN 2+ compared with 20.5% for ThinPrep (p = 0.003) and 54.7% for SurePath (p = 0.013). The corresponding specificities were 93.8, 99.1, and 94.3%. The rate of unsatisfactory specimens for Glucyte was 1.2% compared with ThinPrep (4.8%) and SurePath (0%).

Glucyte appeared to perform reasonably well compared with ThinPrep and SurePath. It offers an alternative to these well recognized LBC systems.