Benefits of an automated screening system for quality control of cervical cytology

Abstract

Currently in Japan, cytology quality control (QC) guidelines state that from cytology samples that are diagnosed as negative by a cytotechnologist, 10% are arbitrarily chosen to be rescreened, while the other 90% are not further evaluated. In a previous study, we found 117 (1.19%) False Negatives (FN). This FN rate was higher than the expected value including previous studies in Japan (FN rate : 0.05%, 0.61%). As stated in the “Basic Plan to Promote Cancer Awareness” in 2012 we have a target for the cervical cancer screening rate of 50% (up from 26%). This goal will dramatically increase the number of samples and increase the workload for cytotechnologists that will in turn lead to a potentially large number of FN cytology samples which could be missed, thus leading to a higher mortality rate. The present study looked at reports on the use of an automated rescreening system for samples diagnosed as negative by a cytotechnologist. Based on our results, we found that the automated screening system could be effective for the QC rescreening of cervical cytology samples.