Aims and Objectives: To score and compare micronucleus (MN) in the whole spectrum of cervical lesions including normal, inflammatory, abnormal squamous cell of undetermined significance (ASC-US), low-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (LSIL), high-grade squamous intraepithelial lesion (HSIL) and invasive cancer (IC) and to evaluate the role of MN as a biomarker in different pre-neoplastic and neoplastic lesions. Materials and Methods: A total of 224 slides, comprised of normal (40), inflammatory (40), ASC-US (30), LSIL (38), HSIL (30) and IC (46), were studied. All the cases of HSIL, IC and ASC-US had histopathology. The LSIL, normal and inflammatory smears were again reviewed by 2 experienced cytopathologists independently. Two observers separately and independently counted the number of micronucleated cells per 1,000 of epithelial cells in oil immersion magnification (×100 objective) which was expressed as MN score per 1,000 cells. Results: The mean MN scores ± SD in normal, inflammatory, ASC-US, LSIL, HSIL and IC cases of cervical lesions were 1.02 ± 1.59, 0.4250 ± 0.71208, 2.87 ± 2.21, 4.7368 ± 5.62179, 21.30 ± 17.18 and 18.50 ± 9.54, respectively. MN scores of IC and HSIL were significantly high compared to the normal (p < 0.000), the inflammatory (p < 0.000), the ASC-US (p < 0.000) and to the LSIL (p < 0.000) group (analysis of variance test). LSIL showed significant difference with the normal (p = 0.043), the inflammatory (p = 0.019), the HSIL (p < 0.000) and the IC (p < 0.000) group but not with the ASC-US (p = 0.342) group. Conclusions: MN scoring on the epithelial cells of cervix could be used as a biomarker in cancer screening. This is an easy, simple, reliable, reproducible and objective test which can be performed on routinely stained smears.

Keywords:
Cervical smear, Cervix, Micronucleus, Screening
© 2010 S. Karger AG, Basel
2010
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