Abstract
Objective: To assess the efficacy, cytopathologic diagnostic criteria, and clinical importance of our smear results.
Methods: The conventional smear reports of 7167 patients whose smear specimens were assessed at the Pathology Department of Zonguldak Maternity and Children’s Hospital in Turkey from June 2006 to June 2010 were analyzed retrospectively. All of the samples were evaluated with Bethesda III 2001 system.
Results: The smear results were determined to be satisfactory in 4509 patients (63.0%). Atypical squamous cell of undetermined significance (ASC-US), atypical glandular cell of undetermined significance (AGC-US), high grade squamous intra-epithelial lesion (HSIL), and low grade squamous intra-epithelial lesion (LSIL) were detected in 98 (1.4%), 25 (0.3%), 12 (0.2%) and 11 (0.2) patients, respectively. The most reported cause of inflamation was bacterial vaginosis and its incidence was 22.9%.
Conclusions: The unsatisfactory result rate was 6.7 % and total intra-epithelial cell abnormality rate was 2.1% in our study. Even though our unsatisfactory result rate was found to be relatively high when compared with the literature we believe that this percentage can be diminished by improving the smear technique, taking care of the transportation of the specimen, and adding adequate clinical information of the patients.

Key words: Cervico-vaginal smear, Bethesda III 2001, intra-epithelial lesion.