title: Commercial laboratory practice evaluation of air-dried/rehydrated cervicovaginal smears vs. traditionally-fixed smears.
abstract: Air-drying artifacts remain a significant problem in the interpretation of cervicovaginal cytologic smears. One historical, and little-used, method to combat these artifacts is to have smears submitted solely air-dried, subsequently rehydrated, fixed, and then stained as usual. Reported here is a 1992-1993 retrospective matched provider study of 6,788 air-dried/rehydrated smears and 1,691 traditionally-fixed smears. No significant differences either in the percentage of abnormalities (8.6% vs. 8.2%) or the degree of abnormality (class II, 6.9%/6.9%; class III, 1.7%/1.3%; class IV, .01%/.06%; and class V, .01%/0%) were seen between the two techniques. Cytology-biopsy correlation remained in the 98-99% range for three large providers switching from air-dried to traditionally-fixed smears. These findings strengthen our belief that the air-dried/rehydrated technique is a viable alternative to combat the usual "air-dried" artifact problem.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Clinical Medicine, University of South Dakota, School of Medicine, Sioux Falls, USA.
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Randall
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: van Amerongen
mesh_terms: D000388:Air; D016477:Artifacts; D001834:Body Water / Q000737:chemistry; D019411:Clinical Laboratory Techniques / Q000379:methods*; D003890:Desiccation / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis; D014626:Vaginal Smears / Q000379:methods*