evaluating and comparing adequacy of pathological specimens obtained from endocervical curettage and cervical biopsy among outpatients with similar specimens from operating room in shahid sadoughi hospital in yazd in 2009-2010

Objective: cervical cancer is one of the most common malignancies in women. in many countries incidence of this cancer is reducing because of screening tests such as pap smear. after the pap smear if the pathologist reports abnormal cervical cytology, colposcopic examination of the uterine cervix remains the gold standard in the evaluation of patients. because in some patients, dysplasia is in the endocervical canal and can not be visualized the time of colposcopic examination, endocervical curettage (ecc) must be performed. the usefulness of endocervical curettage has been debated for years because of pain and discomfort of patients in the time of ecc and inadequate specimen. in this study we want to look for specimen adequacy of outpatient endocervical curettage and compare it with similar cases had done in operation room with anesthesia. methods: this retrospective study is cross- sectional and was done on pathologic results of outpatient & inpatieut specimens that had underwent endocervical curettage and cervical biopsy. data was collected from pathology reports and were analyzed by softwere spss15. this study was done in shahid sadoughi hospital. results: in total 340 cases of outpatient endocervical cuettage only in 70 patients (20/6%) pathologists reported adequate specimen and in 340 cases of outpatient cervical biopsy, pathologists reported adequate specimen in 334 patients(98/2%). among 524cases of ecc in operation room in 476 patients(90/8%) pathologists reported adequate specimens and all of cervical biopsies in operation room had adequate specimen. conclusion: these findings suggest that many specimens of outpatient endocervical curettages are insufficient but similar samples of inpatient are sufficient. therefore to obtain adequate specimens , that is better to do endocevical curettage in operation room or use other sampling methods that we mentioned it.