Evaluating the Age Cutoff Criterion for Reporting Benign-Appearing Endometrial Cells in Routine Pap Tests: An 8-Year Retrospective Review

Abstract

Objective: The 2014 Bethesda System recommends that benign-appearing endometrial cells (BECs) in routine Pap tests should be reported in patients aged ≥45 years. This is a change from previous guidelines to report BECs in women ≥40 years of age. BECs are reported to have 1% chance of endometrial lesion on follow-up. This study tests whether the new threshold may increase the specificity of the test for the detection of clinically significant endometrial lesions. Study Design: After institutional review board approval, 1,177 BECs, reported during an 8-year study period in patients aged ≥40 years, were retrieved from 672,000 routine ThinPrep Pap tests. The results of subsequent workup were collected by chart review, and the Fisher exact test was used to compare results in patients aged <50 and ≥50 years. Results: No endometrial carcinoma and only 2 cases of endometrial hyperplasia were detected in women aged <50 years, whereas 5.5% of women aged ≥50 years with BECs had carcinoma and/or endometrial hyperplasia (p = 0.000169). Conclusion: Investigation of BECs on routine Pap test are useful in patients aged ≥50 years as 5.5% of cases were confirmed to have significant endometrial disease. Our data as well as other studies support raising the BEC-reporting age threshold from ≥45 to ≥50 years, as the new threshold may improve the specificity of the test.