ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, May 23, 1996 TAG: 9605230060
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-14 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
The Food and Drug Administration has approved a new way for doctors to perform Pap smears that might mean fewer women have to get retested because of smudged laboratory slides.
Pap smears, when properly performed, can detect abnormal cells in a woman's cervix before they become cancerous. Cells are scraped from the cervix, smeared onto a microscope slide and then analyzed for abnormalities.
But sometimes excess blood, mucus or other contaminants mix with the cervical cells, smudging the slide too much to analyze. Women then have to be retested.
The ThinPrep 2000 Pap test by Cytyc Corp. of Marlborough, Mass., may change that.
Instead of doctors smearing cervical cells straight onto the slide, the cells are put into a vial filled with a preservative. At the laboratory, a machine filters out any blood or mucus and then spreads the clean cells onto the slide for analysis.
A study of 6,700 patients found the ThinPrep produced more smudge-free Pap slides than doctors did, said FDA spokeswoman Sharon Snider.
The machine is the latest attempt at improving the Pap test, the standard for detecting cervical cancer. The FDA also recently approved computer systems to double-check Pap test results and a special light doctors insert into the cervix to see abnormalities during a Pap smear. |- Associated Press
LENGTH: Short : 38 linesby CNB