Computerondersteunde cervixscreening

Conflict of interest: none declared. Financial support: none declared.

• As a result of the transition from obtaining cervical smears for diagnostic purposes only to obtaining them for preventive health screening, it became clear that automated imaging and evaluation would be inevitable; screening entails many more preparations needing to be assessed along with an anticipated reduction in the identification of abnormal findings.

• A uniform method of preparing specimens facilitates scanning and organising. Instead of the usual smearing of cervical specimens, a method has since been devised for creating thin-layer specimens.

• Current techniques for automated imaging allow by computer-assisted screening a preselection of deviant cells and cell groups that are later visually assessed by an analyst.

• There are two compact (‘bench top’) systems available that have similar features; their use generally corresponds to the way conventional cervical smears are processed.

• Computer-assisted screening saves laboratories time.

• Interpreting the cell groups preselected by the computer remains a human task.