Morphometry in the cytological diagnosis of cervical smears

Morphometry of cells found in normal and abnormal smears taken from the vagina and the uterine cervix is the assessment of the size and diameter of their nuclei. The values of these quantities provide information on the origin of these cells and the degree of possible anomalies. Determining the morphometric traits of different types of cells found in the cervix and the uterus is a very important element in the diagnosis of disorders that often lead to cervical tumors.

The aim of this research is to determine the morphometric characteristics of cells found in cervical smears by measuring the cell circumference, the diameter of the nucleus and the cell surface areain order to identify which clinical group the cells belong to, which facilitates diagnosis.

The study material consisted of cervical smears that demonstrated the presence of cells in various phases of the clinical Bethesda classification. For each clinical classification, the values of the cell circumference, the cell surface area and the diameter of the nucleus were measured for 100 cells.

The largest cells are normal cells in the surface layer. In relation to these cells, the atrophic cells from the groups containing atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASC-US), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesions (LSIL), high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) and tumor cells tend to decrease in size, with small variations. Considering the mean values of the parameters analyzed, the cells of the LSIL group are larger than those from the ASC-US group. According to the mean values, normal cells have the smallest nucleus and the HSIL cells and tumor cells have the largest.

The statistical analysis shows significant differences between the morphometric traits in the different clinical groups, which indicates that morphometry can be used in cytological diagnosis.