These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.


Pubmed for Handhelds

PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS

Search MEDLINE/PubMed

  • Title: A more accurate measure of the false-negative rate of Papanicolaou smear screening is obtained by determining the false-negative rate of the rescreening process.
    Author: Renshaw AA, DiNisco SA, Minter LJ, Cibas ES.
    Journal: Cancer; 1997 Oct 25; 81(5):272-6. PubMed ID: 9349513.
    Abstract:
    BACKGROUND: The false-negative rate (FNR), or fraction, of Papanicolaou (Pap) smear screening has been proposed as a useful quality assessment measure. The FNR should account for the FNR of the rescreening process itself. The authors measured the FNR of the rescreening process by rescreening a set of abnormal smears. METHODS: A randomly selected group of negative (150) and abnormal (91) smears were rescreened in a blinded fashion. A diagnosis of atypical squamous cells of undetermined significance (ASCUS) or worse was used as a positive (abnormal) result. All discrepancies were confirmed by consensus review. The true FNR of screening Pap smears was calculated as: true FNR = calculated FNR/(1-FNR of rescreening). RESULTS: When rescreened, 17 originally negative cases were interpreted as ASCUS and 5 as unsatisfactory. Twenty-three originally abnormal cases (22 ASCUS and 1 low grade squamous intraepithelial lesion) were interpreted as negative. After consensus review, only 1 of the originally negative cases was believed to be ASCUS and 1 unsatisfactory; 18 of the 23 originally abnormal cases were believed to be rescreening errors and 5 of the 23 originally abnormal cases were believed to be false-positives. The FNR of Pap smear screening as traditionally calculated was 6.1%, which was slightly less than the laboratory's usual FNR. The FNR of review screening was 20.9%. The true FNR of Pap smear screening was 7.8% and the false-positive rate was 0.6%. CONCLUSIONS: The FNR of rescreening is not insubstantial. It can and should be measured by rescreening abnormal smears, and when taken into account yields a more accurate measure of the FNR of Pap smear screening.
    [Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]