The current paper presents an annex in the second edition of the European Guidelines for Quality Assurance in Cervical Cancer Screening. It provides guidance on how to make a satisfactory conventional Pap smear or a liquid-based cytology (LBC) sample. Practitioners taking samples for cytology should first explain to the woman the purpose, the procedure and how the result will be communicated. T...

background: cervical cancer is the third most common cancer in women in the world. papanicolaou smear is known as a standard test for cervical cancer screening; however, the most important challenge is high rates of false negative results. the aim of this study was to compare the quality of smears obtained by anatomical spatula and spatula-cytobrush. the most important factor in false negative ...

PURPOSE Measurement of intravaginal pH provides a reasonable assessment of vaginal health but is fraught with the potential for several sampling errors. The purposes of the study were to determine the variability of self-sampled vaginal pH among women using an inexpensive swab-based pH test compared with a clinician-obtained specimen, and variability of vaginal pH within 3 regions of the normal...

A wooden spatula was designed to scrape the varied distribution of epithelial abnormalities of the cervix as seen at colposcopy. The efficiency of the spatula in obtaining dyskaryotic cells and improving the cellular quality of smears was compared with that of the Ayre spatula in a controlled trial. More than 17,000 smears were taken from women aged 14-86 years by more than 200 smear takers fro...

Listeria monocytogenes is of great concern in food processing facilities because it persists in biofilms, facilitating biotransfer. Stainless steel is commonly used for food contact surfaces and transport containers. L. monocytogenes biofilms on stainless steel served as a model system for surface sampling, to test the performance of a sonicating swab in comparison with a standard cotton swab. ...

and is difficult to remove. Dressings with the usual antiseptics can be applied for weeks without cure. I have found the following form of treatment, which is cheap, very satisfactory. The ulcer and the surrounding parts are cleaned with soap and warm water. The skin around the ulcer is smeared thickly with vaseline and then pure carbolic acid (phenol) is applied to the ulcer with a cotton swab...

Complications that arise from self-cleaning the external ear canal are common. This is a prospective study using standard questionnaire on the practice of ear cleaning in 50 subjects. A loose tip cotton bud was also shown to them to assess if it was acceptable to replace their current cotton bud. Thirty six percent of them clean their ears by introducing an object into the ear canal once or mor...

A cytobrush was compared with a cotton-tipped aluminium shafted swab for the collection of 2024 paired endocervical specimens for the culture of Chlamydia trachomatis. There was no significant advantage with the use of either device with respect to the number of positive specimens detected or the number of inclusions present in positive specimens. However, the use of cytobrushes resulted in an ...

A chromatographic immunoassay cholera antigen detection kit, the Cholera Spot test, was evaluated. The test was found to be specific with a sensitivity of 10(6) cfu/ml for the direct detection of V. cholerae in simulated stool specimens and 10 cfu/ml in simulated cotton-tipped swab specimens after overnight incubation in alkaline peptone water. This enables early recognition of cholera cases an...