Pap Test - Practical Aspects

Practical Aspects

The endocervix may be partially sampled with the device used to obtain the ectocervical sample, but, due to the anatomy of this area, consistent and reliable sampling cannot be guaranteed. As abnormal endocervical cells may be sampled, those examining them are taught to recognize them.

The endometrium is not directly sampled with the device used to sample the ectocervix. Cells may exfoliate onto the cervix and be collected from there, so as with endocervical cells, abnormal cells can be recognised if present but the Pap Test should not be used as a screening tool for endometrial malignancy.

Read more about this topic:  Pap Test

Famous quotes containing the words practical and/or aspects:

    Whatever practical people may say, this world is, after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by the wildest and most hypothetical ideas. It is a matter of the very greatest importance that our theories of things that seem a long way apart from our daily lives, should be as far as possible true, and as far as possible removed from error.
    Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)

    The North American system only wants to consider the positive aspects of reality. Men and women are subjected from childhood to an inexorable process of adaptation; certain principles, contained in brief formulas are endlessly repeated by the press, the radio, the churches, and the schools, and by those kindly, sinister beings, the North American mothers and wives. A person imprisoned by these schemes is like a plant in a flowerpot too small for it: he cannot grow or mature.
    Octavio Paz (b. 1914)