Abstract

Cervical cancer is on the increase in women all over the world prompt and regular screening especially in rural areas has always been challenging. This study was carried out to compare a dry slide cervical smear with the conventional wet slide cervical smear in order to adopt an alternative. Six months samples of cervical smears were collected. 100 paired cervical smears slides were treated. One as conventional wet fixed and the other as fixed dried and rehydrated prior to staining. The nuclear, cytoplasm and background were compared. The nuclear of air dry was satisfactory compared to wet (9.0% versus 10.0%) also cytoplasm (8.4% versus 8.6%) the background of air dried rehydrated smear were clearer. This could be as a result of dehaemoglobinization of red blood cells, rendering it transparent. From the result it is possible to use air dried rehydrated cervical slide for cervical smear screening.

Keywords:

Air dried smear, cervical, fixed pap smear, red blood cell, rehydrated, wet smear,

References

Competing interests

The authors have no competing interests.

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Copyright

The authors have no competing interests.