Commercial laboratory practice evaluation of air-dried/rehydrated cervicovaginal smears vs. traditionally-fixed smears.

Air-drying artifacts remain a significant problem in the interpretation of cervicovaginal cytologic smears. One historical, and little-used, method to combat these artifacts is to have smears submitted solely air-dried, subsequently rehydrated, fixed, and then stained as usual. Reported here is a 1992-1993 retrospective matched provider study of 6,788 air-dried/rehydrated smears and 1,691 traditionally-fixed smears. No significant differences either in the percentage of abnormalities (8.6% vs. 8.2%) or the degree of abnormality (class II, 6.9%/6.9%; class III, 1.7%/1.3%; class IV, .01%/.06%; and class V, .01%/0%) were seen between the two techniques. Cytology-biopsy correlation remained in the 98-99% range for three large providers switching from air-dried to traditionally-fixed smears. These findings strengthen our belief that the air-dried/rehydrated technique is a viable alternative to combat the usual "air-dried" artifact problem.