Sensitivity and specificity of the Papanicolaou-stained cervical smear in the diagnosis of Chlamydia trachomatis infection.
Two hundred young women had simultaneously prepared cultures for Chlamydia trachomatis and cervical smears; they also completed a questionnaire. Twelve of the chlamydial cultures were positive. There was poor correlation between the culture results and the cytologic morphology or symptoms. On initial blind reading, only 10% of the smears cytologically interpreted as positive were actually positive by culture. Under the most favorable (non-blind) interpretation, only 23% of the smears cytologically interpreted as positive for chlamydial infection were also culture positive. Because of the high incidence of false positives, we conclude that routine cytologic examination of Papanicolaou-stained smears is not an acceptable method for the diagnosis of chlamydial infections of the cervix. Immunoperoxidase staining of duplicate smears did not appear to be a successful replacement for culture.
Geerling
S
S
Nettum
J A
JA
Lindner
L E
LE
Miller
S L
SL
Dutton
L
L
Wechter
S
S
D000328:Adult; D002690:Chlamydia Infections / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002692:Chlamydia trachomatis; D003593:Cytoplasm / Q000382:microbiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007124:Immunoenzyme Techniques; D013194:Staining and Labeling; D002577:Uterine Cervical Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D014617:Vacuoles / Q000382:microbiology