Comparison of Papnet-assisted and manual screening of cervical smears

We compared the performance of Papnet to manual screening with respect to d etection of dysplastic/atypical epithelial cells, endocervical cells, and i nflammatory changes/infectious agents. One thousand consecutive manually sc reened smears were retrieved front the cytological files and subjected to P apnet analysis. Five slides had to be excluded for technical reasons. Of th e remaining 995 cases, manual and Papnet diagnosis showed agreement in 986 cases, 950 benign or within normal limits, and 36 with epithelial abnormali ties. Papnet detected 4 cases missed by manual screening, but failed to det ect 5 manually diagnosed cases. In 293/749 smears, existing endocervical ce lls were not selected by Papnet (40%) and inflammatory changes/infectious a gents were diagnosed in 49 cases, compared to 87 cases by manual screening (56%). Papnet equaled manual screening for dysplasias and epithelial atypia s, but its poor performance regarding endocervical cells and inflammation w ould be a drawback in primary screening. (C) 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.