A Comparative Study to Determine the Effect of Age & Parity on Vaginal Epithelial Cells Diameters

The vagina is lined by stratified sequamous epithelium which is under the effect of hormonal & environmental factors. The vaginal epithelium is poorly studied & very little & restricted studies made about this subject. This study which is cross-sectional aimed at studying the effect of age & parity on vaginal epithelial cees diameter. It was conducted in Al-Bakarly primary hea lth center in Hilla. 82 women who attend the center for various reasons we re recruited. After taking history & physical examination vaginal swabs were taken t o obtain vaginal epithelial cells, the slides examined under light micros cope to measure vaginal epithelial cell diameter in five epithelial ce lls & the mean was taken for each swab. A significant difference in mean cell diameter was found in diffe rent age groups. The least diameter (5.35 µm) in those aged �20 years while the largest diameter (6.50 µm) in those aged 31-40 years. A significant difference in mean epithelial cell diameter was also found in women of different parity. There was a significant increment in me an cell diameter with increasing parity. The conclusion of this study is that there is a significant effect of both age & parity on vaginal epithelial cell diameter & these factors must be considered when interpretting vaginal swabs & smears.