AP: A Day at the Office
Just the cells, Ma'am
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Purpose: To arrive at a (differential) diagnosis without surgery
Exfoliative Cytology
Aspiration Cytology
Under Construction Please come again soon!
Linkswww.papsmear.orgThis site "allows a woman to select the day she would like to schedule a Pap smear. On the day she chooses, an e-mail will be sent reminding her to call her doctor or other health care provider and schedule an appointment."
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"Cytology is like
proofreading a book -- and looking for the one spelling mistake in 1 million
words!"
Patrolling our back yard one day to clean up after our cocker spaniel Rusty (hence CPR, or Canine Poop Recovery), it occurred
to me that the success of my locator skills was related directly to my screening technique. If I walked aimlessly
back-and-forth, looking around, I would find some relevant object fields. This approach struck me as being comparable to
meander screening.
If I walked systematically back-and-forth, I invariably found more objects, camouflaged as they were by Mother Nature in
her infinite wisdom. This screening method resembled using a mechanical stage.
And finally, if I ran the lawn mower, retracing the wheel tracks along opposing scan paths, I invariably found everything
(sometimes too late). This paralleled total imaging screening coverage.
The lesson learned is that the same technique required to find the last of Rusty's contributions to the environment is the
same as the one required to find the first abnormal cell.
Parenthetically, the two labors are similar in numerous ways. One is a Pap smear; the other, a pup smear. The support
medium for the former is glass; for the latter, grass. Both seek to minimize false negatives, and the list goes on. See?
(from the CYTOPATH-L E-mail listserv)
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