Cervical cytology in the Auckland region

A two week prospective study of the characteristics of women having cervical smears in the Auckland region in 1985 is presented. European and Maori women have about the same rate of smears while Pacific Islanders have a slightly lesser rate. Many women are not having smears taken during pregnancy or at the postnatal examination. Doctors initiate twice as many smears as their patients. More than half of the women had smears taken in less than the three year interval recommended for screening. Five per cent of smears have some degree of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) and nearly half of these showed evidence of human papilloma virus (HPV) infection. There is a spectrum extending from young women in their early twenties with HPV infection alone through their later twenties with HPV and CIN and finally women in their thirties and forties with carcinoma-in-situ (CIS) alone.