title: The Kevorkian curette. An appraisal of its effectiveness in endometrial evaluation.
abstract: Office endometrial biopsy with the Kevorkian curette was performed in 400 patients presenting with abnormal uterine bleeding or other endometrial cancer-risk indicators. The use of this instrument has proved to be a safe, simple, inexpensive, and highly reliable outpatient procedure with excellent patient acceptance. It has provided tissue for adequate diagnosis in 91.8% of the cases, and the diagnostic accuracy when controlled by D&C and/or total abdominal hysterectomy (TAH) was 96.2%. As a result, 73.5% of the women required no further surgical procedures for either diagnostic or therapeutic purposes. In the postmenopausal age group, adenocarcinoma was diagnosed in 7 of 177 (3.9%) women. This procedure is highly recommended for early office diagnosis of uterine pathology and, in particular, endometrial adenocarcinoma and its presumed precursor lesion, adenomatous hyperplasia.
mesh_terms: D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000473:pathology; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001706:Biopsy; D003475:Curettage / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003951:Diagnostic Errors; D004107:Dilatation and Curettage; D004717:Endometrium / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007044:Hysterectomy; D008593:Menopause; D008875:Middle Aged; D014594:Uterine Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology