Clinical down staging of cancer cervix with cytology

A prospective study was carried out on 1500 patients attending the Gynaecology outpatient department of three referral hospitals in Dhaka City. These patients were selected on some selected clinical criteria to correlate several clinical markers (clinical down staging) with that of Pap's smear for early detection and secondary prevention of cancer cervix. Speculum examination and Pap's smear were done in all cases. Among 1500 women, 224 had abnormal Pap's smear. Histologic examination of specimens from these cases showed chronic cervicitis in 45 cases, dysplasia in 84 and squamous cell carcinoma in 95. Carcinoma was found in 130. Thus, there were 297 Pap's smear negative cases were biopsied on clinical ground. 225 cases of invasive carcinoma. From this study, it seems that clinical downstaging with cytology programme has to be started immediately throughout the country for diagnosis of carcinoma of the cervix in its preinvasive and potentially curable stage.