A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF VAGINAL AND CERVICAL CORNIFICATION IN HUMAN SUBJECTS

Abstract

THE advent of the cervical os smear (1) for the diagnosis of uterine cancer has led to extensive comparative studies of the vaginal and cervical methods in this laboratory. Cervical smears have been found to contain a larger concentration of cancer cells in positive cases. It has also been observed that almost invariably a greater concentration of the estrogenic cornified cells is found in the cervical smear than in the vaginal smear. This observation has prompted a study of the cornification counts of smears from the cervix compared with those from the vagina in 125 patients. The cases were chosen at random from our files of patients who had had both vaginal and cervical smears taken at the same time. Patients with cancer and those patients who showed total absence of estrogen, e.g., normal senile patients or castrates, were excluded. The smears covered all stages of the menstrual cycle and a large variety of age groups. It was found that 88.8 per cent of the cases showed the cervical cornification count...