SENSITIVITY AND SPECIFICITY OF THE PAPANICOLAOU-STAINED CERVICAL SMEAR IN THE DIAGNOSIS OF CHLAMYDIA-TRACHOMATIS INFECTION

  • 1 January 1985
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 29  (5) , 671-675
Abstract
Two hundred young women had simultaneously prepared cultures for Chlamydia trachomatis and cervical smears; they also completed a questionnaire. Twelve of the chlamydial cultures were positive. There was poor correlation between the culture results and the cytologic morphology or symptoms. On initial blind reading, only 10% of the smears cytologically interpreted as positive were actually positive by culture. Under the most favorable (non-blind) interpretation, only 23% of the smears cytologically interpreted as positive for chlamydial infection were also culture positive. Because of the high incidence of false positives, we conclude that routine cytologic examination of Papanicolaou-stained smears is not an acceptable method for the diagnosis of chlamydial infections of the cervix. Immunoperoxidase staining of duplicate smears did not appear to be a successful replacement for culture.

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit: