Evaluation of a new tampon device for cytologic autocollection and mass screening of cervical cancer and its precursors.

A new autocollection tampon device for obtaining material for cervical cytologic testing was compared with cervical scraping and endocervical aspiration in order to evaluate the cytodiagnostic results. In 1428 cases there proved to be a 94% correlation between these methods. In addition, both smears were compared in a group of patients known to have neoplastic disease of the cervix. In evaluating cervical cancer both techniques detected 100% of the cases. However, the smears, both regular and tampon, were able to diagnose only 96.5% and 89% of grade 3 lesions and 86% and 81% of grades 1 and 2 lesions, respectively. False negative results occurred in 8.2% of the regular smears and 15% of the tampon smear group. These preliminary data, if confirmed by more broad and in-depth studies, suggest the new autocollection tampon may be a useful tool for mass cervical screening.