Should we report cervical smears lacking endocervical component as unsatisfactory?

The purpose of the study is to correlate the accuracy of diagnosis of cervical smears with the presence/absence of an endocervical component. The referral smears and the smears obtained during colposcopic examination of 84 patients with biopsy-proven squamous lesions were evaluated for the presence of an endocervical component, and the cytologic interpretations were compared with the histologic findings. Of the 136 smears containing an endocervical component, 111 (81.6 percent) had good correlation with histology and 25 (18.4%) showed a discrepancy. Of the 30 smears lacking an endocervical component, 24 (80%) had good histologic correlation and 6 (20%) were discrepant. Our data showed no significant difference in the detection of squamous lesions in those smears with an endocervical component from those without. We conclude that, although the presence or absence of an endocervical component should be documented in the cytology report, its absence should not be an indication to report the cervical smears as unsatisfactory.