PURPOSE: to evaluate the diagnostic procedures used in women with Pap smear result of atypical glandular cells. PATIENTS AND METHODS: a prospective study with 159 women with atypical glandular cells was carried out between January and December 2000. All women were submitted to a new colpocytology and to colposcopy. Directed biopsy was performed in 50 cases, endocervical curettage in 21 and conization in 75. The performance of the diagnostic procedures was described by estimating the sensitivity, specificity, predictive values and likelihood ratio, considering histological results as gold standard. RESULTS: the histological evaluation showed 51 intraepithelial squamous lesions, 29 low grade and 22 high grade. Five women presented in situ adenocarcinoma and six patients presented invasive neoplasias. Colpocytology alone showed sensitivity and specificity of 88.5 and 39%, respectively, and colposcopy alone, 74 and 42%. The association of colpocytology with colposcopy increased the sensitivity to 98.4%, with a significantly lower specificity of 10%. Endocervical curettage showed low sensitivity (25%). CONCLUSION: the presence of atypical glandular cells on colpocytology was associated with preinvasive and invasive cervical lesions in 62.2% of the cases with histological evaluation. Repeating colpocytology and performing colposcopy allowed to select the women who needed histological evaluation. Conization was an adequate procedure when examination continued to show morphologic alterations.
Colpocytology; Glandular atypia; Uterine cervix
