La citología en el diagnóstico preventivo del carcinoma del cuello uterino. Estudio comparativo con la histopatología en 1600 casos

Abstract

The author reviews the works in which the application of cytology to the diagnosis of cancer of the cervix is discussed, and presents a cytological study of 1600 cases registered at the Tumor Clinic of the Ministry of Public Health of Costa Rica. Very few of the patients included in this study came because of gynecol­ogical symptoms; hence in the author opinion, this cytological survey has consider­ able importance in the early detection of cancer of the cervix. The patients are distributed among the five classes internationally ac­cepted by cytologists, and for each class the respective discussions and recom­mendations are made. The author wishes to demostrate the importance of the comparative study of the results obtained by the cytologist, histopathologist and clinician upon the well-being of the patient who, after all, deserves our prime concern. Hence he wishes to stress once again that cytology constitutes the best weapon for the early diagnosis of cancer of the cervix, for cases which are often con­sidered as ill-diagnosed could perhaps be better understood if a comparative study of the results were made with those obtained through clinical and histo­pathological observations. In the light of such a comparison, these cases would be less subject to criticism by authors who do so based on statistical and not on comparative data.