Comparison of cervical smears secured with different instruments

Abstract

Henceforth, we believe that the use of the cervical brush and the Ayre wooden spatula increases the quantity and preservation of the cells retrieved during cervical smears compared to Acellon Combi.

Detection of human papillomavirus (HPV) genotypes in cervico-vaginal scrapes of women with normal and abnormal cytology

“…In addition, HPV genotype analysis revealed that the same HPV genotype(s) were detected in the endocervical specimen as were found in the vaginal scrapes, thereby giving a 100% concordance rate for both sampling procedures. The Ayre spatula used in this study as the collection device (Figure 1) gave both consistent and reproducible results [10], and was well tolerated, particularly by women who were retested. This was reminiscent of earlier reports, which documented the superiority of the Ayre spatula over other collection devices, including cotton swabs and self‐administered tampons [10,12,14].…”

“…The Ayre spatula used in this study as the collection device (Figure 1) gave both consistent and reproducible results [10], and was well tolerated, particularly by women who were retested. This was reminiscent of earlier reports, which documented the superiority of the Ayre spatula over other collection devices, including cotton swabs and self‐administered tampons [10,12,14]. The use of the latter devices was often associated with variable and generally lower rates of HPV detection.…”

“…Vaginal testing using an Ayre spatula as the collection device resulted in a significant improvement in both sensitivity and specificity over previous reports [10], where correlations of 80–90% between vaginal and cervical sampling were obtained [11,12]. Failure to produce complete concordance between cervical and vaginal sampling was the result of sampling techniques [12,14].…”

“…Failure to produce complete concordance between cervical and vaginal sampling was the result of sampling techniques [12,14]. In our hands, the use of vaginal scrapes produced sufficient quantities of cells [10,11], and the expression of the constitutively expressed b-actin gene was always sought, thus ruling out the possibility that absence of HPV PCR products was related to specimen degradation, or to the presence of PCR inhibitors, which collectively confirm the consistency and efficacy of this sampling method [6,11].…”

“…As proper assessment of HPV infection depends on the quality of specimen collected and of technique used in detecting HPV, and as speculum‐assisted endocervical sampling was frequently associated with drawbacks, notably with patient compliance and its level of invasiveness, amongst others [11], alternative sampling methods, including vaginal sampling, were investigated to yield sufficient cells without significantly inconveniencing the patient [11,12]. Concordance rates varied between speculum‐assisted endocervical sampling and other collection methods, including cytobrush, self‐administered tampons and swabs [1,11,12], which highlighted the need for refinement in specimen collection, and hence manipulation [10].…”