title: Investigation of the visual cytoscreening of conventional gynecologic smears. I. Analysis of slide movement.
abstract: In order to elucidate the process of visual cytoscreening, graphic and electronic recordings of the stage movements in visual screening of conventional gynecologic smears were carried out. More than 400 recordings have been evaluated. The screening consisted of alternating movements, with a mean duration of 180 milliseconds, and stops of about 230 milliseconds. Variations of the screening pattern due to the specimen diagnosis were hidden behind the rather obvious individual behavior and reactions to inhomogenity of material distribution. The detection threshold was found to vary with the diagnostic situation. A lowering of the detection threshold was especially reflected by an increase of the overlap in screening direction and an increased number of fields of view with stop times of more than 350 milliseconds. A substantial part of the specimen was only seen during movements; the fraction of the specimen area covered during the stops was found to vary between 41% and 93% for screenings in the daily routine work.
mesh_terms: D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005188:False Negative Reactions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D009068:Movement; D013997:Time Factors; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D014626:Vaginal Smears / Q000379:methods*