Cytology at the end of pregnancy: significance of determinations of the eosinophilic and karyopyknotic indices.

The clinical usefulness of the cytologic findings "pre-term," "at term" and "post-term" are discussed briefly. For this investigation, the eosinophilic and pyknotic indices were obtained by counting one hundred cells in each of four microscopic fields. A separation function was calculated using the eosinophilic and pyknotic indices. The results of our study permitted a highly significant separation of the collectives "pre-term" and "at term."