Cytology screening program in an urban and rural community in India. Review of a ten-year experience.

An approach to the detection and management of early cervical cancer and its precursors utilizing basic and inexpensive equipment and a team of workers comprising physicians, cytotechnicians and social workers in an urban and rural community in India is described. In the ten-year period from 1970 to 1979, a total of 26,217 patients had Papanicolaou smears taken; 104 patients had histologically proven carcinoma in situ or microinvasive cancer of the cervix in which the clinical findings at the time of cell study did not indicate malignancy. The policy of management based on judicial conservatism and essential radicalism gave good survival rates and minimum morbidity.