Colposcopic evaluation of cervix in symptomatic women and its correlation with Pap smear. A prospective study at a tertiary care centre

INTRODUCTION: Back in India, cervical cancer is the second most frequent cancer in women (aged 15–45 years) following breast cancer, accounting for nearly 14% of all female cancer cases. The aim of this study is to yell the findings of pap smear with colposcopy and directed biopsy (if needed) and to evaluate the usefulness of colposcopy in discovering the premalignant and malignant lesions of the cervix. METHODS: This is a prospective observational analysis of 150 symptomatic women attending the gynecology OPD of Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna, for a period of one year from 2019 to 2020. Assessment of symptomatic women was completed with a pap smear, colposcopy, and biopsy in selected instances. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS USED: MS Excel spreadsheet application, SPSS v23 (IBM Corp.), was used for data analysis. RESULTS: The expression age (years) has been 34.68 ± 8.05. The sensitivity and specificity of pap smear were 91.7% and 45.45%, respectively, whereas the sensitivity and specificity of colposcopy were 83.3% and 72.72%, respectively, in the present study. CONCLUSIONS: Pap smear had low specificity as compared to colposcopy. Hence simultaneous use of colposcopy has shown to rise in the rate of carcinoma cervix discovery in symptomatic women.