Quality assurance in cervical cytology screening. Comparison of rapid rescreening and the PAPNET Testing System.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the performance of the PAPNET Testing System and compare the sensitivity of this automated device with that of rapid rescreening. STUDY DESIGN: In this study, 1,000 cervical smears previously diagnosed by our laboratory as negative were seeded with 20 particularly difficult cases. We submitted this seeded set of smears for rapid rescreening and to PAPNET to determine cases that could be detected by rapid rescreening, PAPNET or both. RESULTS: Rapid rescreening detected 9 of the 20 cases (45%). The PAPNET system identified 19/20 (95%). This investigation found PAPNET rescreening to be more effective than rapid rescreening in detecting the seeded difficult cases. CONCLUSION: Use of the PAPNET Testing System in tandem with rapid rescreening can reduce the rate of false negatives in diagnostically difficult cervical cytologic smears.