Reporting of cervical cytology in women attending a tertiary hospital in Guwahati, India: some demographic profiles

Cervical cytology plays an important role in diagnosis of cervical dysplasia and invasive cervical cancer within hours to days in subject to the availability of the Pap test facility in a health centre. The present study was carried out with the aim to detect the abnormality in the uterine cervix among the women of age group 20–65 years who attended gynecology OPD of Gauhati Medical college during September, 2011 to August, 2012; also to find out the association of dysplasia detected by cytology with age factor and parity status of the women. The procedure included scrapping from transformation zone of uterine cervix by exposing the cervix with help of Cusco's speculum; then smeared in a clean grease free glass slide, alcohol fixed and stained with papanicoloau stain. Smears were reported according to the Bethesda system 2001 which showed 88.05% smears were negative for CIN and 11.95% were showing positive results with varying degree of CIN to invasive cancer. There exists a significant association between the age of the patients and the cytological category with p value <0.05; association of increased parity with the abnormal cytology is also significant with p value <0.01.