INDEPENDENT CLINICAL FACTORS WHICH CORRELATE WITH FAILURES IN DIAGNOSING EARLY CERVICAL-CANCER

Our aim was to identify independent factors that correlated with colpo scopically diagnosing early cervical cancer. One hundred ninety-one of a total of 2265 patients who had colposcopic examinations because of abnormal Papanicolaou smears were included in this study. These patien ts had all undergone a hysterectomy after being diagnosed as having ce rvical intraepithelial neoplasia grade III by colposcopically directed biopsy. By univariate analysis, old age (P = 0.0195), achievement of menopausal status (P = 0.0046), large lesion size (P = 0.0021), and un satisfactory colposcopy (P = 0.0017) were found to be associated with the nondiagnosis of early cervical cancer. However, multivariate analy sis using stepwise logistic regression revealed that large lesion size (P = 0.003) and unsatisfactory colposcopy (P = 0.0008) were the only independent factors that correlated with nondiagnosis. Our findings in dicate that in order to reach a clear-cut diagnosis, cases with either unsatisfactory colposcopy or satisfactory colposcopy with large lesio ns (despite a lack of histologic evidence of invasions) should undergo a diagnostic conization. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.