Use of the Vaginal Smear as a Screening Test

Abstract

IN VIEW of the current interest in the vaginal smear and the optimistic hopes aroused by recent accounts of its usefulness, a preliminary report of a study being made by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to evaluate the method may be helpful in clarifying its present status as a diagnostic test.The technic for the detection of uterine cancer by means of vaginal secretions was first described by Papanicolaou¹ in 1928. In 1943 Papanicolaou and Traut² presented evidence of the value of this method for demonstrating carcinoma both in patients before symptoms had appeared and in those in whom . . .