[Usefulness of colposcopy in inflammatory cervico-vaginal smears: apropos of 140 cases].
BACKGROUND
The cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer of the woman in Tunisia. It is considered as a sexual transmissive desease due to the involvement of the HPV.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of our study is to proove that an inflammatory cervical smear should be considered as a positive test and must lead to other investigations.


METHODS
It is a prospective study over 140 cases of inflammatory cervical smears (without atypical cells) diagnosed during a year period from june 2001 to june 2002. These patients had a systematic colposcopy with the biopsy of suspicious lesions.


RESULTS
The mean age of our patients is 42 years. 68.57% of them are in active genital period. The colposcopy was normal in 10% of our patients. It showed benign lesions such as: ectropion in 22.85%, colpitis in 14.28%, cervical polypus in 5%, normal transformation zone in 8.57%, but also suspicious lesions such as : atypical transformations grade I (ATGI) in 25.71% and atypical transformations grade II (ATGII) in 13.57%. The biopsies made on 89 patients showed dysplasia and carcinoma in 18.57% of them. A case of in situ carcinoma, a microinvasif epidermoid carcinoma and an invasif glandular carcinoma were diagnosed.


CONCLUSIONS
Colposcopy is an ambulatory investigation. It makes a minutious study of the cervix and diminishes the rate of false negative made by the cervical smear.
Ben Hmid
R
R
Service C -Centre de maternité et de néonatalogie, Tunis.
Mourali
M
M
Zghal
D
D
Mahjoub
S
S
Naceur
C
C
Sbai
N
N
Zouari
F
F
D000230:Adenocarcinoma / Q000473:pathology; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001706:Biopsy; D002278:Carcinoma in Situ / Q000473:pathology; D002294:Carcinoma, Squamous Cell / Q000473:pathology; D003127:Colposcopy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D011127:Polyps / Q000473:pathology; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012725:Sexual Behavior; D002577:Uterine Cervical Diseases / Q000473:pathology; D002578:Uterine Cervical Dysplasia / Q000473:pathology; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D002575:Uterine Cervicitis / Q000473:pathology; D014626:Vaginal Smears; D014627:Vaginitis / Q000473:pathology